Inspired by this book my friend Carol Fawson gave me (which her mom wrote), I decided before school got out that some summer goals were definitely in order. Frankly, I was surprised at how well this system worked for us.
If the kids even hinted at the "B word" {nope, not the one Ellison heard on the bus and blurted out at the dinner table}, I just scuttled them right over to their dandy summer goal sheets.
No Boredom Allowed.
The kids came up with most of their goals, but I had to put the kaibosh on a few ("get a pet lynx").
Incentives? You bet your overachieving deriere. They weren't buying my initial soliloquy on "achieving goals makes us feel proud and good about ourselves, etc etc etc etc etc" so we opted for Plan B.
Upon completion of ALL summer goals, they got to pick a family activity that we normally don't do, like bowling, laser tag, etc. OH YES, we'll be doing a repeat of this program next summer.
My main summer goal was to stay out of the clink. Somehow I ran a yellow light (to be fair, it was a pretty flattering photo of me), somehow managed to miss driving school, and somehow just because of those two things the DMV saw fit to suspend my licence. Boy howdy did I ever drive super carefully until I got that little plastic card reinstated [with the slightly fudged weight].
Silver Lining Alert--How many kids in the 4th grade can say they their Room Mom makes good cupcakes AND is out on bail?
Authority: 37 Karen: 0
Goals are good.
8 comments:
I'm glad you aren't in jail, too. Love the goal idea. Sounds like an activity I want to adopt next year!
I love this!! Its one of those things that you could realistically approach and actually use over the summer. I can't wait to try it next summer.
I'm glad you got your DL back. I still have my AZ one, even though we'ved moved.....twice since then. Oh well. Maybe that will be number one on my list next year.
Ha ha. THat is such a cool idea. I love your little comments on your goal list. You crack me up.
That also happened to my drivers license. I ran a red light... Greg gave me bad advice and told me to ignore the photo ticket (cute pic of me on my cell). A year later I went to change my name on my drivers license (after we got married) and found out that it was revoked. I had to go to driving school with people who had DUI's... 8 years later and I still have my maiden name on my drivers license. I need to make a trip to the DMV but I hate that place!
I didn't know Carol's mom had a book like that ... I need to read it before next summer!
Karen, how fun to see this post! I am sending the link to my mom and sisters. We can all get great ideas from your goals. And to have a mom goal sheet!? New! Great idea! So cute that all your kids signed you off on them. I hope you still got to go to the big reward even though your tomato plants died. LOL
Eric was afraid of the same thing for me. I still don't learn my lesson- I hate driving slow. (and it's 25 mph around here, not kidding.)
I like the goals for the summer- very very good! And, even if you "failed miserably" on one or two,...pretty sure you wouldn't have accomplished as many of the others. Thanks for updating your blog!!! :)
Great idea. Glad you got your license back, those darn cops!!!
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