Saturday, December 11, 2010

Laps

I am sure many of you with boys know that they are quite different from girls. One of the ways, that I find that they are most different is their level of activity. I find that most boys cannot sit still as long as girls. The way they play shows this exuberance. Little girls sit down and play dolls or Barbies or even house. Boys, on the other hand, have weapons and have to run around playing war, or ninja and seem to have preference to hitting, shooting or stabbing each other. This is not to say that little boys cannot sit down and listen. They just tend to be more energetic in their play than most girls. This is not usually a big deal in our house. We have a pretty big yard and lots of outside toys. The problems come in when they get in trouble and the "fun" stuff starts to get taken away. When their Wii, Leapster and Didj's are taken away, they might be a little sad but it tends not faze them too much since they do not spend a tremendous amount of time on them. This might be due to Brad and I looking at these activities as treats. When their outside time gets take away, they are much more upset. Unfortunately, not only they are upset but so is the whole household since they really need to expend their very quickly pent up energy. In talking with a friend about this problem, she proposed making them run laps in our back yard. She went on to tell me at first they do not mind running them but after a little while they will look on it as more of a punishment. She has talked about this idea before and while I love it I keep forgetting to try it. Sure enough, the first couple of times they were all so excited that my littlest who was not even in trouble begged for his older brother to get him dressed and put his shoes on so he could go run too! Not only that, but they were running extra laps too. Now, when I was growing up I hated running(although I might be focusing on high school where sweating was to be avoided at all costs). After a few times of sending them outside to run their age in laps, I noticed that they were not running any extra laps (except in the morning) but they were slowing down a bit too which cause us to implement another guideline. If the laps are not "ran," then they do not count. Also, the little boys were not jumping at the chance to go "run" too. We have used it for three days now and while it is not a cure all; it has helped tremendously. After they come in, (and get a drink sometimes) they are better prepared to concentrate on the assigned task. This idea will probably be used frequently from now on as this gives them time to get some of the ants out of their pants and allows my boys the ability to focus again. I think within the next week we will be completely on track again, in chores, and school. Woohoo, anything that works effectively, right? Now why did it take me so long to implement this idea and even more so how did someone with all girls know the perfect boy fix??

1 comment:

Randi said...

Told you it'd work, lol! I've never used it on my girls, just my nephews and neices. I have made 4 do jumping jacks before though, she wasn't happy after about 5 of them. Whatever works to keep everyone's sanity, right? Besides running counts towards PE, lol.