My kids and notes: Year 10.7
November 12, 2025
Life with JB
Far too many kids in the fifth grade have Apple Watches and phones already. At least one of them is a jerk who’s constantly creating drama so of course she’s now using the tech at her fingertips to get other kids to gang up and pick fights with other kids. This kid also has a history of picking fights with JB and lying about JB to the other kids to stir up drama so I have no liking for them specifically. I’m absolutely judging their parents for either allowing them to behave this way or for not monitoring their usage (and being clear that they’re monitoring, with consequences for unacceptable behavior).
We’re not letting JB have a phone for YEARS yet, and we’re using this time to talk about internet safety and rules until they can recite them in their sleep. When we do, we’re adopting a good friend’s rules. Parents have audit privileges so we can drop in and check texts at any time, and unacceptable behavior has consequences. Phones at these ages are a privilege and privileges can be lost.
Related to this, I’m don’t understand bribing kids with $500+ motivation like JB’s classmates’ parents are doing. They’re offering a Switch2 if the kid hits certain meaningless goals. Meaningless to us, anyway. JB reads both for their own enjoyment and to win prizes at school. This kid reads plenty, at the same level as JB, which is a lot. I don’t understand the need to dangle larger incentives to hit higher reading numbers. For what purpose? They’re already reading tons, as any kid would have to in order to hit the millions of words. If the kid wants the bragging rights, good for them. What’s the parent getting involved that for? Maybe there’s a good reason for them, but it seems silly from where I stand. But I’m also working on teaching JB to develop their own intrinsic motivation, and to love doing things purely for the joy of it because I got to keep so little joy in my adult life, which may not be at all those parents’ intent.
Life with Smol Acrobat
Many of SmolAc’s same age classmates have left daycare and moved on to TK in their school districts. The changes have left SmolAc as one of the two oldest kids of their daycare class. This makes me feel weird and empathetic to their recent desire to stay home more. They’re always sad when they go to school now. Not because of school specifically but because none of us family are there with them. They really loved the summer when JB attended camp nearby. Unlike JB, who rarely if ever looked back when we dropped off, SmolAc is full of yearning.
I finally figured out their motivation! The joke’s on me that it took me this long to figure it out. I used to ask JB to do me favors: whether it was a chore or running something to me because I was in too much pain and needed to conserve energy, and they were always happy to do it. SmolAc was put upon and grumpy every time until I hit on the magic words: delivery, please. It’s funny because that comes from a game we played a few years ago when play cousin came to stay with us. The two of them took turns flying their Lego construct to ask me to send them on a delivery run.
Precious Moments
SmolAc drawing a robot for me: “He’s sad.”
Oh? How come?
He’s sad because he doesn’t have his family.
Oh no, I’m sorry.
But … he won’t be sad way-ter. Because I will draw a big one and dat will be da daddy wobot, and the medium one will be da mommy wobot.
*****
SmolAc: I didn’t do anything to him. I did not hit his arms, or his wegs, or his nose, or his head or his feet. He just kicked me.
Thought to self: that was a very specific list of didn’ts.
*****
SmolAc: Waaaaymooooo! And no people.
PiC: There’s no driver?
SmolAc: No.
Me: Weird.
SmolAc: Dey have computers, what are you talking about.
Me: well that’s me told.
*****
I’m so proud: One morning, SmolAc yelled to me, “Mom can you pwease wun the (robot) vacuum? It’s dirty.”
Yep, I need to move all the shoes first, though!
SmolAc: I aw-weady did!
Reader, THEY HAD. Not only did they notice vacuuming needed to be done, they proactively cleared up the space to make it easier to vacuum!