The writing's on the wall.
And the door. And the bed. And the floor...
Have had to have a serious talking to with Ollie about writing on said items! There have been a number of incidents in the past but this latest one required a very stern talking to.
To summarise, he stayed at a hotel this weekend and noticed whilst walking around in it, that all of rooms (unsuprisingly) had numbers on them. So on Monday morning he got up extra early, went round with a thick black crayon and wrote numbers on the doors of every room in the house. And for good measure on a number of other items of furniture too.
By the time I discovered this in my bleary eyed Monday morning state (after two late nights working) he had already left for school with Claire. Which was probably fortunate for him as I was somewhat annoyed to say the least.
Many of the doors in our house are wooden, and this crayon was thick stuff - there was no way to remove it without damaging the look of the wood so we are probably going to have to treat the doors now with varnish or something.
Anyway, it's not easy to try and communicate to a five year old what's right or what's wrong, or even the severity of such an offence. I do know that screaming and shouting and smacking gets you nowhere though. When I got him back from school I got his undivided attention and gave him a stern but calm and serious talking to, explaining what he had done, and why he was wrong. There were no raised voices but I know I got through to him - he was quite crestfallen to have disappointed Daddy so badly. The subject is now closed and we've no need to keep going over it - I'm confident though that I've got through to him and there's been no so much as a pencil mark on anything since.
I know it's hard when we're angry with our children to stay in control of the situation and handle it effectively - I think I managed this one better than most. The fact that he wasn't here when I discovered the crime probably helped - it gave me time to take a deep breath or two and decide exactly how I was going to tackle the situation. Maybe there's a lesson there for all of us - and not just dealing with children but people and problems in general - take some time out to think the best way out of a problem. Most people are reasonable if approached sensibly - even fractious five year olds.
As you know I am not doing facebook any more however I thought it might be fun to drop in occasionally, and if there are any interesting issues raised, that I fancy responding to (about 1% of all things posted on facebook at a rough estimate) - that I would in fact write my response on here instead where it's got a little more permanence.
This new feature shall be called "Jason's facebook surgery". Of which this shall be the first, and very possibly last edition like most of the other "features" I have started in the past.
So, here's a few stati I spotted today.
Bicester Blogger fan Donna asks:
Now the darker evenings are closing in I am finding my children are hungrier earlier. Eating dinner at 5-5.30pm seems too early. Are anyone else's children the same ?
Well Donna, that seems perfectly normal to me. We always eat at around 5pm here at Ayres Mansion, and that's all year round. Any later and the kids start to get irritable. Plus it gives you plenty of time to tidy up, wash up afterwards and then spend time with the kids before they go to bed - which is around 7pm in this house. Of course eating so early for the adults means you're likely to be hungry again later on - but that's OK - in my case I usual have some cheese with my wine mid evening, then a midnight feast just before bed consisting of any cooked meat or other protein items that I can find in the fridge and a few bags of crisps. That normally sees me through until brekkie the next day. Hope that helps.
Upmarket Winchester "I used to live in Bicester but don't like to talk about it" resident, Robert Eldridge asks:
anyone know how to filter posts I see from friends? I.e. So I don't see picture of the day, so and so just played pacman, join us at pal poker etc?
To turn the game notifications off you can hover over the notification item and click on the little x in the corner to stop them appearing. To control what appears in your news feed, hover over the person's name and then when the little box appears below hover over friends. You can then click settings to control what you see from that person. For example if they are one of those twats that posts 50 links to youtube videos a day you can click off that particular option. Or if they just annoy you in general - unsubscribe. You won't see anything from them anymore but it avoids possible awkwardness in the future.
Oxford United fan Gary Bosher asks:
Anyone fancy coming to Rochdale?
Well it's just coming up to half time and the latest score is
Rochdale 0 - 0 Oxford United.
Hope you are having an enthralling evening, Gary!
If you have enjoyed reading this blog, please take a look at my books on Amazon (Paperback & Kindle), where you can read lots more of the same! Click here.
Jason xx
Have had to have a serious talking to with Ollie about writing on said items! There have been a number of incidents in the past but this latest one required a very stern talking to.
To summarise, he stayed at a hotel this weekend and noticed whilst walking around in it, that all of rooms (unsuprisingly) had numbers on them. So on Monday morning he got up extra early, went round with a thick black crayon and wrote numbers on the doors of every room in the house. And for good measure on a number of other items of furniture too.
By the time I discovered this in my bleary eyed Monday morning state (after two late nights working) he had already left for school with Claire. Which was probably fortunate for him as I was somewhat annoyed to say the least.
Many of the doors in our house are wooden, and this crayon was thick stuff - there was no way to remove it without damaging the look of the wood so we are probably going to have to treat the doors now with varnish or something.
Anyway, it's not easy to try and communicate to a five year old what's right or what's wrong, or even the severity of such an offence. I do know that screaming and shouting and smacking gets you nowhere though. When I got him back from school I got his undivided attention and gave him a stern but calm and serious talking to, explaining what he had done, and why he was wrong. There were no raised voices but I know I got through to him - he was quite crestfallen to have disappointed Daddy so badly. The subject is now closed and we've no need to keep going over it - I'm confident though that I've got through to him and there's been no so much as a pencil mark on anything since.
I know it's hard when we're angry with our children to stay in control of the situation and handle it effectively - I think I managed this one better than most. The fact that he wasn't here when I discovered the crime probably helped - it gave me time to take a deep breath or two and decide exactly how I was going to tackle the situation. Maybe there's a lesson there for all of us - and not just dealing with children but people and problems in general - take some time out to think the best way out of a problem. Most people are reasonable if approached sensibly - even fractious five year olds.
As you know I am not doing facebook any more however I thought it might be fun to drop in occasionally, and if there are any interesting issues raised, that I fancy responding to (about 1% of all things posted on facebook at a rough estimate) - that I would in fact write my response on here instead where it's got a little more permanence.
This new feature shall be called "Jason's facebook surgery". Of which this shall be the first, and very possibly last edition like most of the other "features" I have started in the past.
So, here's a few stati I spotted today.
Bicester Blogger fan Donna asks:
Now the darker evenings are closing in I am finding my children are hungrier earlier. Eating dinner at 5-5.30pm seems too early. Are anyone else's children the same ?
Well Donna, that seems perfectly normal to me. We always eat at around 5pm here at Ayres Mansion, and that's all year round. Any later and the kids start to get irritable. Plus it gives you plenty of time to tidy up, wash up afterwards and then spend time with the kids before they go to bed - which is around 7pm in this house. Of course eating so early for the adults means you're likely to be hungry again later on - but that's OK - in my case I usual have some cheese with my wine mid evening, then a midnight feast just before bed consisting of any cooked meat or other protein items that I can find in the fridge and a few bags of crisps. That normally sees me through until brekkie the next day. Hope that helps.
Upmarket Winchester "I used to live in Bicester but don't like to talk about it" resident, Robert Eldridge asks:
anyone know how to filter posts I see from friends? I.e. So I don't see picture of the day, so and so just played pacman, join us at pal poker etc?
To turn the game notifications off you can hover over the notification item and click on the little x in the corner to stop them appearing. To control what appears in your news feed, hover over the person's name and then when the little box appears below hover over friends. You can then click settings to control what you see from that person. For example if they are one of those twats that posts 50 links to youtube videos a day you can click off that particular option. Or if they just annoy you in general - unsubscribe. You won't see anything from them anymore but it avoids possible awkwardness in the future.
Oxford United fan Gary Bosher asks:
Anyone fancy coming to Rochdale?
Well it's just coming up to half time and the latest score is
Rochdale 0 - 0 Oxford United.
Hope you are having an enthralling evening, Gary!
If you have enjoyed reading this blog, please take a look at my books on Amazon (Paperback & Kindle), where you can read lots more of the same! Click here.
Jason xx
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