Attitude

Shut the gate and keep the hogs out of the yard. -- Webster's Blue Back Speller

"Excuse me, but I was perfectly behaved today. So why am I
being punished? . . . Get this stupid thing off of me!"

You know how I was expecting a rough homeschool day on Tuesday? Well, I got it today instead. Yay.

It started with Eli's terrible attitude toward his assignments and was compounded by my lack of patience. (Probably because I was not expecting the backlash. I always handle nasty attitudes better when I am expecting them.)

Things quieted down as we got closer to lunch time, but the attitudes started right back up after rest time. I had to rush Eli out of a nap to put shoes on and head to Lila's appointment with the naturopath. He didn't appreciate that.

Then Lila found out that she'll be continuing this dairy-free experiment for another six weeks. She didn't appreciate that. Nor do any of us, really.

There was arguing over toys at the doctor's office that continued all the way home and turned into outright yelling and mild violence (from the children). I was finally so sick of listening to it that I went all Love & Logic on them.

I told them that, due to all the arguing and rudeness, I no longer had the energy to finish our school work. They didn't see how that was a bad thing, at first. Then they realized that, without doing responsibilities, they wouldn't be able to earn privileges (like videos and game time).

They were pretty well-behaved after that. Much less arguing and they didn't complain at all about the things they were missing out on.

We'll have to finish today's school work tomorrow, but that shouldn't be a problem. I'm mildly concerned that they'll try being disruptive again, in hopes that I'll run out of energy and not be able to do our work. I have a plan for that, however. It will not go the way they expect.