Friday, December 6, 2013

A million tomorrows later

I made some lame declaration that the day following my last post there would be another post.  Whatever, I try. 

ANYWAY… the change I am seeing….

Owen’s school just implemented “table washers” during lunch.  Originally the kids ate lunch, cleaned up their own place, and went to line up for lunch; however, after many failed attempts at the clean up your own place part, it was time for official TABLE WASHERS.  The job description of a table washer is to wipe down the table after everyone else is done for one week before they change to someone else.  Owen is dreading the task because he says kids are gross when they eat and even went so far as to say that he often packs up his lunch early because too many kids have gross food and the way they eat it bothers him.  (I know, he could possibly need therapy in the future). 

Owen had told me about the table washers when they started and then he told me this:

O: “Mom, you will never believe this, the table washers get a cookie on Fridays!!!”

J: “How lame!!!”

O: “I know, they announced it today and everyone was like, whoooo, whoooo and started cheering.  Not me, I was like, boooo.”

J: “Really?”

O: “Yes, mom, I even went up to two of the recess teachers after and I told them that they should not be handing out cookies to the kids for washing the tables and they should give them Frog Prides instead (a frog pride is a ticket for doing something good, all of the staff at school hand them out and it enters the kids into a drawing for a weekly toy).

J: “You really did that? What did they say?”

O: “They said that I can have a Frog Pride when I am a table washer and they said they would take my concerns to Mr. Golden (the principal).” 

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I am still over the moon about this. 

I can’t believe how often our children are rewarding for doing something they should do anyway.  As parents, we are not doing our children any favors by constantly rewarding them to exist.  It makes it impossible for children to develop their own sense of accomplishment, learn what is important to them, and teach them to do a good job because it feels good.  We send them conflicting messages when we reward them after soccer games, baseball games or music class with a treat and this starts when they are really really young.  We assign them a job - give them a cookie for doing it; do a random desk check -  give them a jelly bean when it is clean; tell them to run around and exercise at T-ball in order to be healthy – follow it up with a pack of Oreos and a juice box; have your name forgotten by a teacher - get a Skittle.  The more I am aware of it, the more I notice it EVERYWHERE. 

Although, I do agree that if you have to wash gross food from gross kids off the tables you should get a reward, but it would be nice if the reward could be something more than another cookie. 

My neighbor said that she doesn’t know what Owen will do when he is older, but she feels that he will change something.  I hope she is right.