Here it is, March 17th, and the kids are home from school on a snow day. A legitimate one this time--a whopping 6-7 inches. I hear we've had 9 (maybe this is number 10) snow days this year. At the beginning, they were calling snow days when snow was forecast, even if nothing had fallen from the sky. They got burned a couple times on that one--even if it is not unusual for where we live. Now they seem to be waiting for the stuff to actually fall.
I will have to remind myself of this next year, but the reasons given for having a snow day (and calling before flakes fly) is that it doesn't take much snow to completely paralyze people around here (again, not completely off the mark). And because of the time it takes to ramp up the buses to get everyone to schools--first elementary, then middle, then high school, it's probably 4 hours. In that time, a lot of snow and a lot of accidents can occur.
It is also not uncommon for kids to have a delayed opening (2 hours) after a snow day because of refreeze and icy conditions. All these things I will need to remind myself of next winter when I am struggling to swallow that my kids are home again. I have major issues with the structure of our school calendar (and i've been on the calendar committee for a number of years to try and address them). The kids had a 4 day week at the beginning of November and between days off and 1/2 days and snow days, did not go to school for a full week of school until the 2nd week of January. I am not exaggerating. Even the teachers were complaining that it had been so disruptive that the kids were having a difficult time learning and settling into a routine.
Every snow day (or weekend) at our house starts the same: the kids get up between 6 and 7am, say good morning to us while we sleep and then play on their devices until we wake up. Now, I am addicted to the computer--I will admit that. My kids and husband will tell you I spend more time on the computer than not. So, while I'm PTA President this year and it is a bad time for me to be doing so, I'm kind of giving up on email a bit lately. I'm trying to stay off the computer, but the siren of the endless internet--of searching for furnishings and clothes that we legitimately need to trips I want to take, to researching how to do something, I could go on all day and all night. Don't get me started on the brain candy articles that suck you in, clicking on one link to the next, like a chain smoker.
So my solution is to focus the vast majority of my computer time in the day, when the kids are not around, and do limited stuff (even at night), because it has become such a time suck. Now I've moved on to watching TV after their bedtime -- but that's a whole other crutch I need to get off of.
All that said, I feel on solid ground to be telling my kids that they have to turn off the electronics. They play the same minecraft game and watch You Tube videos of the same gamer (Stimpy-someone). And while I don't mind any of that in moderation (we let them have the devices on weekend mornings while we sleep in--so for 3-4 hours). It has been getting to the point where they are waking up early to use their devices (again ONLY to play minecraft and watch the videos) and they are throwing fits when we try and get them to do something else. So I'm going to figure out how to lock down You Tube and Minecraft and make them play other things while on their devices and if I can't do that, I'm going to completely take them away.
I'm hoping that with spring coming (it is coming, right?), they will be outside more and it will be less of an issue. Last summer we traveled A LOT and we let them have the devices ALL the time. Way too much in fact. I think they only know what the destinations looked like because they had their noses down everywhere we drove. Not proud of that, but the fact remains...
Turning over a new leaf...just in time for Spring!
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