Here I am again with another Living Arrows posts. I haven’t had the motivation to blog about anything lately (although I have got a Millionaire’s Shortbread recipe post in the pipeline!) so I’m glad I have these posts to keep me writing, and so we have a record of these unusual times.

We had a bit of a change last week – I realised our super-relaxed approach to home learning wasn’t really helping any of us. The boys were getting so used to doing hardly any school work that they were complaining every time I asked them to do even the tiniest thing.

So we had a chat and reset our expectations, and came up with a plan that relies quite heavily on bribery! We now have a checklist and they have to do at least some English, maths and reading every day if they want screen time. We then have a list of optional extras like watching BBC Bitesize, doing a worksheet, playing a board game and various other things that all earn them extra TV or PlayStation time.

I’ve also said that if they have four super days with plenty of learning and not too much complaining that we won’t do school on Fridays. I’ll admit this is as much for my benefit as it is for theirs though!

It seems to be going OK so far and we’re not getting quite as much resistance as before so fingers crossed it lasts.

Gabe has been super emotional for the last few days, just crying at everything, and especially when he doesn’t get his own way or is asked to do anything he doesn’t want to. To be honest, this isn’t really anything new but he had been getting better since starting school in September and he’s definitely regressed since being in lockdown. I just hope that it doesn’t affect him too much when they eventually do go back to school.

Toby is doing OK too – the same as everyone really, he’s coping fine but could do with getting back to some semblance of normality soon. (He’s definitely in that stage where he needs to grow into his teeth as well isn’t he?)

I hope you’re keeping safe and staying sane, and I’ll be back next week with another Living Arrows post.

This is my ninth year taking part in this linky celebrating childhood, based on a poem by Kahlil Gibran, “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth” .

If you’d like to see the rest of my Living Arrows posts you can find them all here.