So I've been nannying for 6 days now...and let me tell you it is much harder than I expected. In six days we have:
-Gone swimming at the Y 4 times.
-Visited the library twice.
-Played at the park twice, and had a with a picnic once (Alicia, we used my fancy picnic basket!!)
-Rented a movie, Pink Panther to be exact.
-Played ridiculous amounts of games, mostly Skipbo and Sequence...2 of my favorites thankfully.
-Played office
-Went to Michaels twice to get craft supplies.
-Made an obstacle course.
-Made clay crafts.
-Colored.
-Went to Lake Elmo Park for some swimming/playground action.
-Got ice cream from Coldstone twice.
...and my favorite....
-We went to a horse show at the Collesium today. Yep, a horse show.
Seriously...can you imagine how exhausted I am at the end of each day?!?! These kids NEVER do anything on their own!!! I grew up with babysitters and "nannys" and I remember playing barbies in my room quite often, or playing with my brother and sister. I remember the babysitters doing homework, or playing with us on occasion, but never constantly entertaining us. These kids never play with toys, they are always looking for me to entertain them. I'm going crazy. I have no idea how I can keep up this pace. They don't even enjoy watching TV, and they get bored of video games after 15 minutes! Oh, and can you believe these kids have never played office before?!?! I loved playing office with my brother and sister. They also have never played house, poor people, rich people, "Boxcar Children", library, restaurant, store....I mean SERIOUSLY!!!! Those were all my favs back in the day. These kids are missing out!
I have plenty of fun ideas I guess, but trying to get an 11 year old girl and a 7 year old boy to agree on an activity is tough. Especially when the girl yells at her brother constantly, and the boy throws fits almost every hour for various reasons. I've had to make reward charts for him to earn stickers...he has one specifically for games, because he will constantly quit, cheat, and/or cry if he doesn't get his way. He also has a behavior chart to add stickers to when he makes good choices. He only has 2 stickers so far.
I have a feeling this is going to be a really long summer.
7 years ago
3 comments:
Wow buddy! I think you should institute an "independent play time" so that they can learn how to entertain themselves and also so you can have some down time. Maybe start small--5 or 10 minutes and work your way up to 1/2 hour. I wonder if that would work??
Good luck with the kids--I can't imagine
I think Angela has a good idea. At day camp, we make the kids have a half an hour of "quiet time." They can do whatever they want as long as it's by themselves and they don't disrupt anyone else.
I don't work at all on Tuesdays or the whole week of July 4 if you want to go to the science museum or something.
Good idea. I think I'm going to enforce independent play time from 7:30-9am. I am way too tired to play that early in the morning!!
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