Cana
This morning I come into the living room to find all the cats huddling around something on the floor. I assume it is a spider and look to confirm and it is one of the ants! The industrious little guys had built a hill over their water dish and climbed out the watering hole! There were two, one I was able to save and put back into the habitat using tweezers. The other? Murderous cats! This was a group effort; they swatted it to death. We had to plunge pencils into the watering holes to secure the ants and move the water dish. They are trying to use their mighty ant powers to remove the pencils, so we check them regularly.
Cana
These ants apparently didn't think we were very good tunnel builders. They have filled in most of the starter tunnels we made and constructed their own. They have even used a slivered almond as a roof to the main entrance. This happened all in one night.
This is the view of the almond roof from the outside.
Cana
These ants are busy. It was amazing to see how fast they started working on tunnels. They checked out all the "starter tunnels", then began working on side tunnels to connect them.
You can see all the sand they have dug out of the tunnels and piled at the top of the habitat.
Cana
The ants arrived today, actually they probably got here on Saturday, but we didn't go out there till today. I wasn't sure that any would actually be alive. It gets pretty cold at night. The package warned to keep from extremes in temperature, too late. We didn't obey the "Open Immediately" either.
The were all crammed in a little tube. At first, none were moving, but eventually there was movement in the vial. I immediately regretted letting them wake up before I transferred them into the ant habitat. The instructions informed me that they have a "painful sting". They were not to be touched. I had to take the cap off and dump them into the habitat. They were moving a lot, so I considered putting them back outside to slow them down until the habitat was ready. But this seemed cruel.
Unfortunately, we had left the habitat outside and forgot to bring it in. The sand mixture needed to dry in order to become hard, so we had it sitting in the sun. We propped it over the heater to warm it fast. I tried to convince Brent to dump the ants in the habitat, I was scarred, but he seemed to sense the true reason and said no. Only one tried to scamper up the tube and bite me, but I knocked him off.
Cana
JB is Callie's constant companion. He does chores with her and helps with homework. Though I'm not sure if pencil hitting is helping her handwriting.
Cana
I am a firm believer in natural consequences as the perfect teacher. When the kids were young, this was a simple thing. Refusing to eat breakfast simply meant they were hungry at lunch and thought twice about skipping a meal the next day. As they got older, it got a little more complicated.
That was when we started Stones. It was like a combination of the point system from Harry Potter and countless other techniques that we morphed into what fit us. I loved Stones. It was visual, the kids could see their jars filling (or not filling). It was a positive and negative tool. I could reward or take stones. The stones made noise. The kids could hear me adding or taking stones away. This stopped all parental yelling! I watched Brent backtalk to JT while JT calmly removed one stone from the jar after another. Brent became frustrated, but stopped when he realized JT would keep going. It also forced us to search for the good in our kids. Who could deal with an empty jar. But now they are getting even older. The desire to decorate jars and watch them fill, then turn them in for stuff has waned. We have found ourselves less able to impact our children's behavior, unable to give out consequences that our children care about. That is what it is really about; finding what they want or care about and using it as a currency that rewards them for positive behavior and discourages negative behavior. At least it is for us.
It hit me the other day that my parenting tools were becoming ineffective when Callie was horrified that a previous teacher would see her work. Admitting that it was below standard. Something I had been telling her for awhile. Yet, other than threatening to allow a teacher to look at her work, how could I motivate her to do her best. Both kids got into the habit of doing what was required and I got into the habit of being frustrated but accepting it. Something had to be done.
JT and I sat down last night to discuss why Stones was no longer working and how we could adapt the principle of a simple system to our changing children. First we need to know what our kids wanted and cared about. Sadly, as is the way in most families, it came to video game/tv time. Oh well, deal with what works.
We are dumping stones and just using time. Friday is when assignments are due. I keep track of the weeks highs and lows. JT sees the kids at times I do not and sees other behavior. We plan on sitting down each weekend and discussing their week. We have come up with an average amount of TV time we want them to have and what they could earn for an exceptional week. We will let them know Sunday what they have earned for the upcoming week and why. The hope is that they will see it is their overall behavior that matters. It is OK that they have rough spots, but they need to keep trying and will be rewarded. I have hopes that someday the currency isn't video games.
We have set a daily limit during the school week for time that they can use. They need to plan ahead, since no additional time will be rewarded. This is our first week. We are giving them this week what we consider average. I'm sure we will be tweaking it over the next couple weeks, but hopefully some of the frustration will be alleviated.
