Home schooling has many benefits. One of them being that we don’t have to hustle out the door early in the mornings! On the other hand, it is easy for my kids to become a little, shall we say, slower to get moving in the morning? I am a stickler with time and I make my poor children get up at 7:00 am and be at the table ready to start their school day at 8:30. Hey, I don’t want to produce lazy kids!
My girls have always been very efficient and have never need much for reminders about keeping our schedule and doing their chores. My son on the other hand, is a whole different story! He will go up to his room to do his chores (make bed, get dressed, brush hair and teeth, clean bedroom) and get completely sidetracked. As he is picking up his legos, he decides to build a few more things with them. And on and on, until 30 minutes or so go by and he is still in his pajamas with nothing done and we are ready to start school. It has made us late and me frustrated far too many mornings, so I started thinking….
Using a timer has worked well for us in other areas, so I started setting a timer for him to get things done. I use the one on our stove because it would be all too tempting (and he is too smart!) for him to reset it himself, and it also helps me stay on track with it too 
Thirty minutes should be plenty of time to do those chores, so I set the time and as I am downstairs getting ready for our day. I remind him “You have 20 minutes, you have 10 minutes” etc. And if he gets it done in 30, he gets 30 minutes computer time later in the day. We have done this for a couple of weeks and it has worked beautifully for us. Since my son is super competetive, he is now trying to beat his time every day. Every now and then as a mother, I do feel like a genius
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You ARE a genius!! =) I think this would work great for my 10 year old boy AND 8 year old girl. The older ones are pretty responsible, but those two are always getting sidetracked. And they have a schoolbus to catch in the morning!! Great idea =)
My baby brothers are like this , maybe it IS like this for boys. My Little , well he is so very little yet.
This could have sooo been written by me! Are you my long lost sister?
I am definitely trying the timer thing.. so obvious… duh, me!
You ARE a genius. [0= I am going to start using this in the morings ! I have 4 boys and it is a boy thing I think.
I think you’re right, it is a boy thing! Raising a boy is so different!
This must be a boy thing b/c my son is the same way!
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