Thursday, February 4, 2010

Kiley- What to do...what to do...

Well, it's official. Kiley is growing up. Lately, her friends have been calling her non-stop. The calls begin to come in about 5 min. after we walk in the door from school and they don't stop until well into the evening. I am new to this, so it took me 2 days to finally come up with an appropriate plan for her age. I told her that she has to do her homework before she can accept any calls. She has always done her homework right away so that she is done and doesn't have to worry about it when we are eating dinner or getting the kids to bed. Once her homework is done, she can take 1 fifteen minute phone call. If she has chores to do, she can do them after the 1 call. She is then allowed to either take another 15 minute call or to make 1 fifteen minute call. No calls are allowed after 5:30 pm. I want to give her some freedom, but still provide a lot of structure for her. I can tell that some of these kids who call 10 times in a 3 hour period don't have a supervising adult at home. We always eat dinner between 5:30 and 6pm together, as a family. The kids take their baths between 6:15-6:45 and get ready for bed, which is at 7pm. Kiley is allowed to stay up until 7:30 in her room. She usually reads or talks to me about school. At 7:30, we turn out the lights and she is usually asleep by 8. I am also trying to make decisions that will help me once she is a teenager. I think she knows that dinner as a family is important and there will only be a couple of nights that she will be allowed to miss that. She knows that her homework has to be done before anything else. She gets grounded if she is disrespectful. She has chores, but also gets an allowance for doing them. She also gets money for good grades and gets grounded for bad grades. I just want to stear her in the right direction when she is older and I have to start laying the groundwork for that now. Kiley has a PJ party to go to at her school on Friday. She is going with one of her friends. A few of the other girls in her class were upset because they couldn't take her. It's silly, but I try to take her issues seriously because I know they are a big deal to her. She seems a little bit more mature than some of her friends. I think this next year is going to be a learning experience for both of us.

No comments:

Post a Comment