Frankly, I’m not sure how today’s discipline is working out.

I won’t bore you with the details – let’s just say yesterday finished with a bang that resulted in reflective writing assignments for both kids and the loss of every type of screen today.

This is one of my more extreme consequences.  Typically, if they’re gonna lose electronics it’ll be the iPod/iPad/laptop but they’ll still be able to watch tv.  Before going to bed last night I taped a sign to their hallway door that says:

No Screens of any kind today.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

iPod, iPad, DS, laptop, TV

I was asleep so I missed the initial fallout; BrightSide got caught in the drama as he was trying to leave for work and said it wasn’t pretty.  My concern for that reaction hovers right around the “Eh” level.

At any rate, I had to get lab work done this morning so they brought along books for the waiting room.  Did they read said books?  Not so much.  There was more goofing off than reading going on, but whatever.  They weren’t plugged in.

So far at home they’ve mediated last night’s problem, done their chores, baked and decorated a cake by themselves (there are no words – check out my Twitter feed for pics), played with the dogs, skateboards on the ramp, done math review, and are now playing in the backyard again with Gracie.  (And I just found out they were tossing Sprees in the air for her to catch and eat.  Crap.)

On the way home from Bear’s doctor appointment this afternoon she asked, “What else do we have to do today?!”  I mistakenly interpreted this as “what’s on the calendar?” but it turned out she was saying we’ve done all there is to do without our electronics, and it’s only 3:45 pm.  What now?!  Oh, silly girl.

Art.  More skateboarding.  Tech decks.  Build another Rube Goldberg machine in the bonus room. Write a story.  Draw a picture.  Write a letter.  Play with any of the gazillion things up in the bonus room.

They’ve also volunteered to make dinner.  Huh.

So I’m torn.  It’s been a long day.  A little better now that my headache’s eased up but still…it’s been a long, long day.  As horrible as this sounds, their being forced to completely unplug basically forces them to constantly interact, and that results in more conflict than a typical day.  Which means I’m stuck with a whole lot more “come here so we can talk it out” moments.  Which is exhausting.

Even moms need the peace and quiet an Apple device provides.  Banning everything for the day puts me on high alert…Lord willing, we’ll be able to relax things again tomorrow.