Back to Square One
It was one of those weeks.
The kind when you find yourself looking for the $99 flights somewhere. Anywhere.
When kids sleep until 6pm in the evening, and tell you they don't care.
When kids spend all their salary on an assault style BB gun complete with night vision.
So...we backtracked to the only choice we could think of. I like to think of it as high quality babysitting with built in rewards for good behavior. Kind of nutty for 18 year olds, but then again, they say the emotional age of kids from orphanages is equal to where they stopped getting their needs emotionally met. We figure that is pretty young for all of them, thus...the behavior does resemble toddlers on many days.
The kids lost all privledges to movies, Tv, video games, shopping, travel, allowances, etc etc. They have a chance to earn them all back in return for doing chores, coming to work, not smoking in the yard etc etc. We designed 3 levels for them, and they actually liked the idea.
They are truly lost in a sea with no paddle. So here is the paddle. Those who wish to refuse paddling will slowly find themselves drifting out of our sea by default.
On a happier note...Sasha made me smile one morning ...
"Sash...let's stay in bed all day" (it's another minus 30 morning....but I'm just teasing him)
"No mom, we can't...we'd miss all the fun!"
"Like what?"
"Like projects and art and playing and making blinis(pancakes)"
"oh. right. Let's get up!"
The kind when you find yourself looking for the $99 flights somewhere. Anywhere.
When kids sleep until 6pm in the evening, and tell you they don't care.
When kids spend all their salary on an assault style BB gun complete with night vision.
So...we backtracked to the only choice we could think of. I like to think of it as high quality babysitting with built in rewards for good behavior. Kind of nutty for 18 year olds, but then again, they say the emotional age of kids from orphanages is equal to where they stopped getting their needs emotionally met. We figure that is pretty young for all of them, thus...the behavior does resemble toddlers on many days.
The kids lost all privledges to movies, Tv, video games, shopping, travel, allowances, etc etc. They have a chance to earn them all back in return for doing chores, coming to work, not smoking in the yard etc etc. We designed 3 levels for them, and they actually liked the idea.
They are truly lost in a sea with no paddle. So here is the paddle. Those who wish to refuse paddling will slowly find themselves drifting out of our sea by default.
On a happier note...Sasha made me smile one morning ...
"Sash...let's stay in bed all day" (it's another minus 30 morning....but I'm just teasing him)
"No mom, we can't...we'd miss all the fun!"
"Like what?"
"Like projects and art and playing and making blinis(pancakes)"
"oh. right. Let's get up!"