So, having had a, how should I best describe it?  Oh yes, a challenging year with DS1’s homework last year, I thought I would pre-empt all future resistance by planning my strategy in advance of the new academic year.  I ran through my mental list of what did work and what didn’t, the latter being the longer of the two lists!  I started with positive reinforcement (as least I think that’s what they call what I was doing!).

If you do your homework without making a screaming fuss:

– You can have  a sticker for your sticker chart.  When you have 5 stickers you can have a treat;

– I will give you AED2/5/10 (depending on how much my will had been broken!), and at the end of the week you can buy yourself a treat;

– I will buy you a special treat;

– You can stay up until midnight on Thursday;

– I will leave you more in my will than your siblings.

Can you guess on which list the above landed?  Yep….the ‘didn’t work’ list…….

But, I was not willing to give up my quest for the perfect bribe, errrr, I mean, incentive/reward, that easily.  Early in the summer, I hit on the achilles heel of every child under the age of 12…….the iPad…….I know…..at this stage anyone with any understanding of technology was lining up to spend the night outside the Apple store to get their hands on an iPad3, whilst we seem to be a generation or two behind (really???? Why is it that a ‘generation’ is considered a year or two these days?  In my day, a ‘generation’ was a few decades)……So, adhering to my interpretation of a ‘generation’, we aren’t late coming to the party; we are super early, ahead of our time, in fact!

Anyway, that’s all beside the point of the power this new fangled tablet has over the little ones (I do appreciate it’s not just the little ones that are entranced!).  One iPad.  3 kids.  Not a fair battle.  So, we got a 2nd iPad….still not an iPad 3 but, nonetheless…..now we all have the time to improve our ‘Fruit Ninja’ and ‘Temple Run’ scores…..whatever about it being a great ‘babysitter’, the iPad has helped in my lot’s appreciation of sharing.  5 stars from Mummy!  Though, now we are working on putting that ‘appreciation’ into practice.  Sorry Apple, you lose 2*

This IS it.  I have found the perfect incentive.  ‘You do your homework, you get to play on the iPad for 10 minutes’.  It worked wonders over summer…..

Week 1 of school…..no interest in the iPad.  Only interested in catching up with all their friends and wondering which activities they will be doing after school, and how many playdates they can squish into a week.

‘Not to worry’, I think.  Once they are settled they will be begging me for the iPad.

Week 2 – still no interest.  I think there is something wrong with my 21st century kids!  No interest in the iPad, or any other modern gadget for that matter. It was the first extended period of time they weren’t squabbling over it.

Damn those little critters; they have thwarted my plans.  They pre-empted my pre-emption of their tactics.  I am powerless against them.  I am back to square one on the homework front; my will against theirs……sigh.