Well this week at CKC it was the end of term, which mean it was time for PRIZES!! The kids earn points every week for coming, doing their homework, knowing the memory verse from the week before, winning games etc. We have three prize levels: 50 points - chocolate bar, 100 points - eligible to come to a pizza/games night at my house, 150 points - I'll take them to the movies/zoo/10-pin bowling/science museum/etc. of their choice.
When we had the same system before at KBC, the pizza/games night was the highlight of the term for all the kids. There, the 150-point prize was also an aeroplane ride with me, and we had kids get to over 150 and insist that they couldn't ever miss coming to the games night, so they'd wait until they had 230 so they could do both (games night was 80 points in those days).
I'm not sure what it is - different kind of kids, I guess - but 5 of them had enough points to come to the games night and none of them wanted to.
I don't feel rejected (well, I do kind of) but I'm just wondering what to do, whether to persist with it or come up with a different prize. However, I don't want to get physical prizes because then they just end up with loads of 'stuff'; things they can eat or things they can do I think are better. Also there's the $$ to consider, knowing that the value kids place on things and their monetary value are often quite different.
Maybe playing games is not 'fun' enough for them - these are kids whom I've heard say, 'the school holidays are boring unless we go overseas'... must be terrible to be so hard-up. Back in my day going to McDonalds was a big treat, and you wore your best clothes to go to the movies. Can anybody else relate??
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In the meantime I had to laugh at this:
(The original, for my non-kiwi readers:
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzFRV1LwIo )
Pulp Sport parody:
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=vVj-EnGNiic
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I think a lot of kids now don't learn, or don't get the chance to learn, to entertain themselves. I was lucky enough to grow up (in the 80s and 90s) somewhere semi rural with a sister close to my own age. Our best holidays were camping out on the farm in our tent, swimming in the stream, climbing trees and building huts, roaming around the paddocks, writing stories, feeding pet lambs, having friends over for sleepovers... none of which cost anything. (except lambs' milk formula!) In the holidays we would sometimes we would go for weeks without going "out" or leaving the farm. If we did go to a movie it was a treat. But we made our own fun and we didn't need constant external entertainment like new stuff or going away on holiday.
I think it is sad all kids don't have the lifestyle I had.
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