We didn’t do much yesterday, and were too stuffed from dinner to go to the pool in the evening. I spent much of the afternoon in various stages of food prep for the twice-baked potatoes – 45 minutes to bake the bacon, an hour to bake the potatoes, a half hour or so to carefully scoop the potatoes, another 15 minutes or so to make the mashed potatoes, another 30 minutes in the oven, and about 10 minutes to put together a Caesar salad (I cheated and used frozen precooked chicken).
I’ve been trying different things to get him to self-regulate his daily hygiene tasks but he hasn’t been too cooperative. I’ve been having some challenges getting the boy to bathe, but I think I finally found a solution – absolutely no tablet time if he hasn’t showered that day. Today he was actually bugging me about taking his shower, and I told him to go ahead, but he went well over his known amount of screen time yesterday so will be restricted from use today.
He definitely has a screen addiction – if he isn’t on the tablet, he wants to be watching something on TV or playing a video game. With my physical limitations, I can’t take him out to do things as much as I’d prefer so I’ve been pretty liberal with allowing the use of electronics, but I’ve been trying to instill some reading habits. Unfortunately, it seems like the only books he enjoys “reading” are graphic novels and comics – a bit surprising as this is very different from his mother.
My daughter was a prolific reader. When she was about his age, I took her to a book store and she sat in the children’s section while I was scouting for any hidden gems. When I finished looking, I went to gather her up and she had a pile of books she wanted that was nearly as tall as her. I said something along the lines of, “Don’t you think that’s too many?” She just looked me dead in the eye and gasped, “But daddy, you can never have too many books!”
She got the stack of books, and they lasted her about a month.
Granted this was before smartphones and the social media boom, but I’m still a bit surprised that the boy isn’t more of a reader. I figure it is mostly because the TV was the babysitter growing up. She was mostly responsible for raising her siblings and managing the household, as her mother had other things she wanted to do, so the TV was an easy way for her to keep her siblings occupied while she cleaned or prepared food for them.
(We recently had a conversation about this time in her life, as this was when she was actively avoiding coming to stay and she let me know her mother had told her that I wanted to take her away from her siblings and not let her see them anymore – being so young she just believer her mother at the time and it wasn’t until years later that she started piecing things together and we were able to rebuild our relationship.)
Once she had the boy and had to have an actual paying job, not just caregiver for her siblings, her mother did watch him but it was always TV time or him sat in a corner with a tablet to keep entertained. I did learn that one of the challenges to his enjoyment of reading is his lack of understanding of some words, but if he picks up the tablet to look something up, he’s immediately down the rabbit hole of videos and stuff like that. I think I’m going to get him a dictionary.
While I absolutely adore tech, I believe we have become entirely too reliant on it. My handwriting has gotten progressively worse as I’ve gotten used to typing everything. I don’t remember friend’s phone numbers because I don’t need to – just tap their name in a list. Why learn to read a map when the app just tells you to turn right or left when you are supposed to? Why bother learning proper sentence structure and how to write a report when you can just ask an AI agent to do it for you?
My goal for this visit is to create some good habits that he will carry with him even after he returns home. Reduced screen time, more physical activity, more reading, more skills and less reliance on tech. Maybe I should get a compass for the boy and teach him the basics of land nav…
Song of the day: Mr. Roboto by Styx
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