blessed spill-over effect:

Normally the way fighting over Doing Spelling and/or Grammar works is this.

• Christopher demands a break 'first,' before getting down to work
• I protest, then cave
• I become distracted & lose track of time
• Christopher does not see fit to remind me his 15 minutes are up

That's part 1.


Part 2 begins when I come to and remember:

• SPELLING! GRAMMAR!
• I shout up the stairs: GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW! YOU HAVE SPELLING! YOU HAVE GRAMMAR!
• silence
• I shout up the stairs again
• silence again — or, sometimes, Christopher shouts WHAT???!!!
• I climb the stairs to our bedroom (where the PlayStation lives) stalk into the room, bark at my son:COME DOWNSTAIRS RIGHT NOW AND DO YOUR SPELLING
• Christopher, not taking eyes off screen: WAIT JUST 5 SECONDS!

etc.

It's too embarassing to go on.

Around here, 'break' means 'transition.' Christopher can't stand the idea of going directly from CHURCH to MOM'S HOMEWORK, or from SCHOOL to MOM's HOMEWORK, or from anything at all to MOM'S HOMEWORK. (He's conscientious about the school's homework, and seems often to enjoy doing it. He wants, and I think needs, 'a break' before doing his school homework, too. But he doesn't try to play out the clock.)

I sympathize with the transition business. But Christopher's Problem With Transitions long ago became a ploy, and I'm sick of it. Plus, it's rotten for my own frontal lobes not to mention my own productivity; as David Allen says, you need to get stuff OFF your mental list. David Allen is right. Constantly having to remember who's not doing what is eating up what little executive function I have left.

So on the way home from the KUMON Center yesterday I nipped the transition business in the bud. I said: I don't think you should take breaks before KUMON. You should just do your KUMON worksheets the instant you get home.

My timing was perfect. There's a little bit of Magic at the KUMON Center, and Christopher was still under its spell. 'OK,' he said, looking serious. Then, a little later, "I need to build up my speed on addition."

Today, after Christopher did his KUMON worksheets, I said, "You have spelling and grammar to do."

"NO!"

etc.

I did the Choose One routine ('you can choose which one you want to do'), which also elicited a big fat NO!

But within a couple of minutes, Christopher was calmly doing a page in Megawords.

Then he checked it himself.

This is gonna be good.

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