Library Battles

With all of our running about the little girls have had the hardest time squeezing in naps here and there. Ingrid especially is so messed up right now.  I’ve resigned myself to the fact that they’re just going to have to make do, like the rest of us.  I can’t seem to bring myself to ask the older kids to give up all of their activities, and I can’t seem to bring myself to give up naps for the little girls, so we’re just compromising.  That does not bring consistency, but we’ll get it all sorted out.

Really, they’re good sports.  They got to play in the library play area the other day while David was in chess club.  He was the first kid there again, which he likes because then he can play Doug who sort of sponsors the chess club.  Doug is always teaching him new things.  The club starts at 2:30 even  though  most schools aren’t out yet.  It gives the homeschool kids some time first, and then it overlaps with the public school kids who come in, and then we have to leave early to get Silje to choir practice.

I made a mistake, regarding the library, though.  You see, David is obsessive about his screen time.  In fact, he’s so obsessive, that we’ve had to restrict his time on our iPad to only on weekends, and only for an hour.  Otherwise, he doesn’t get any schoolwork done.  He only repeatedly asks for the iPad, or rushes through and does a sloppy job then asks for the iPad.  He does a better job studying and exploring outside, and reading for fun when the option for the iPad is off the table on our “work” days.

It’s not that I hate technology, it’s that I don’t want my kids in front of screens 8 hours a day, which is what they do unchecked.  David has the personality that if he gets a taste, his brain is “ruined” for the day.  He can’t even focus on anything else.

Which is why I was annoyed that every single “game” the library has offered in the last year has pushed the kids to check out an iPad.  You know these games with prizes, like library candy land, or library bingo, that has the kids cross of all of these “explore the library” things?  Knowing that the library has iPads to check out is one of the things to check off.

The thing is, I don’t want my kids to know they can check out an iPad at the library.

I bring them there to pick out books, not play video games.  I knew that if they did that, the library would be ruined.  It would no longer be a place in their minds to go read, and discover new things.  It would be a place to go play Angry Birds.

Silje does these library promotional games diligently, and wins free books, or pencils and stuff.  She loves it.  I’ve managed to tell her “no” to checking out an iPad for the games in the last year, and she’s still managed to get her prizes.  However, the last game was bingo, and if she could black out her page, she got to pick out a free book, and one she’s been wanting was on the prize shelf.  So she gave me her doe eyes and asked if she could check out an iPad just so she could black out her bingo card.

So I caved.  In a moment of weakness, I said, “OK, you can check one out, but only for 30 minutes, and we will never, ever do it again, and you will never, ever ask again.”  She agreed to my terms, and checked out the iPad, and earned her book.

It was only a matter of .05 seconds for David to see that Silje got to check out an iPad.  He thought it was so unfair.  I never let him check one out.  I told him that maybe next week, he could get 30 minutes on the iPad and mark off his bingo sheet (which he didn’t even care about, and I wish that he would actually do the discover-what-the-library-has-to offer activities), but he had the same terms.  He would not ever do it again, and he would never ask again.  In hindsight, I should have made him do the full library game in order to earn the 30 minutes of iPad time.

So the next week he got his 30 minutes, and dutifully returned it afterwards.  I thought I was in the clear.

I wasn’t.  Now he leaves chess club, mid-game, and begs me to check out an iPad.  He won’t pick out books to bring home, because he just wants an iPad.  He just gets mad because none of the books are as fun as the iPad.  He won’t talk with his friends in chess club or watch other people play anymore.  He’s just hanging on me for an iPad.

I have not given into him.  Each time he’s pestered me, and broke his promise not to ask, I took away one of his weekends with our iPad at home.  He now can’t play for a full month because he just couldn’t stop asking.  (And really, if I was consistent with my promise, he would be missing far more than a month for how much he’s asked.)

I feel like the meanest mommy in the world.  I also know I’m the stupidest for even letting him play at the library, because that is now the new battleground for technology.  I’ve been strong for a full year.  It will take literally months for my “no” to sink in with David.  That’s how obsessive he is.

Now every trip to the library starts out with a lecture of what we do, and what we don’t do in the library.  We play chess and talk with friends.  We check out books for the week, and sit and read.  We can play with the train tracks in the play area.  We do not check out iPads and play video games.  If we ask, another weekend of iPad at home is taken away.

Personally, I do not pack up 5 kids, have the 2 little ones skip naps, find hats, coats, mittens, boots, for all of them and drive all the way to town so that they can play games on an iPad.  If I wanted them to play an iPad, I’d give them ours at home and go take a nap.  That would be much easier.

Such is life with a strong-willed child with attention issues.

It’s one of those times where I tell myself, “God gave him a strong will for a reason!  This obsessiveness is part of his gifting!  He’s going to change the world with that strong will!  It just has to be pointed in the right direction!”  Those are the things I mumble to myself, on the way home from our library battles.