Yes.
I was the one that said it.
And yes, as it happens, it worked.
Roll back a bit, and I’ll explain.
Since Oliver has been sitting up the table, we [stupidly] started to use the iPad to distract the boys at the breakfast/dinner/tea table, as a means to shove more food into them, as they’d otherwise run away. I’ve blogged about this before, so won’t rehash old hashes. But we used it.
Then, it got worse.
We bought another one, as the little monsters were arguing about it, and I feared for the safety of my iPad. (In fact, I should have let it break, as this would’ve fixed the problem, nipping it in the bud.) But, nonetheless, we did. Nectar points, that I had previously deemed worthless, seemed to have amounted to some value, namely two-thirds of an iPad, hence, we sprung for another.
Worth pointing out, that my boys don’t have “an iPad each” – admittedly, the number-count of my children does equal the number-count of iPad devices in our house, but this is purely an accident. They are allowed to utilise the iPads for their education, information and entertainment purposes *only*, but they are not ‘pre-allocated’ to a particular child. (They simply haven’t signed out the mobile/tablet under the Brett Rigby IT Policy… joke.)
Anyway, I digress.
Jack occasionally over-boils. He’s allowed at times, I guess, when the weight of the world is on his shoulders, he sometimes pops his lid, and mostly in the direction of Claire and myself. He seems to do this when he’s had time in the company of someone who can direct all of their attention at him (my parents, or at the in-laws, for example) and then when he comes home, the stark reality of normal life is a bit overwhelming. Pop.
The ONLY thing that I’ve found that appears to hurt him (so to speak) is the threat of me taking the iPad away to work with me. I kid you not, although I wish it were a joke. I’ve threatened to stop him from going to his weekly Karate lessons, stop him from riding his bike and/or scooter, stop him from doing ANYTHING that I had previously thought that he loved doing, but to no success.
Me: “I’ll take the iPad away”
Him: <silence>
It’s not like the little monster even uses it a great deal anyway. But this really does the job, and I’m not sure how I feel about that yet. He and Oliver are far from “the Geek’s children” and affixed to a phone/tablet/computer at any given opportunity. Far from it. But it’s odd that he’s like this about it.
However. On the flip-side, the iPad is THE best treat/reward for doing something, such as homework (yes, he’s five and gets homework!). Ten minutes on the iPad for doing some ‘boring’ handwriting and reading a book? Pfft. No problem.
Will see how this pans out.
