someone asked about the summer challenge mentioned in yesterday's post.

the summer challenge program was an idea i had as last year's school season wound down. my original thought was to offer bella and alex a series of possible skills they could try to learn. options would have included things like magic, walking a tightrope, piano, riding a unicycle, yo-yo tricks, playing a drum to list a few. at the beginning of the summer they would pick the skill they were most interested in and every day they spent at least fifteen minutes practicing their skill they could make a mark on a calendar. if they accrued enough marks over the summer they would get a super-cool toy they really wanted. i had put a lot of thought into this and was both excited and proud with the result.

when i presented it to marty, she was six kinds of against it. she didn't like the notion of them feeling pressured. she didn't like the notion of tracking it. she didn't like the notion of them getting paid to learn. we bandied these issues about in the kitchen one night after the kids had gone to bed. this was so not the response i expected from marty. i thought she'd be appreciative of this option for the long summer days. i thought she'd be impressed at the level of thought and interest i put into it. in the end she told me that it was unfair to project my childhood regrets that i didn't better use my free time while growing up onto my children. with this wild right hook that seemed to be brewing long before this evening came to life, i backed off the topic.

the next day at work i talked with a colleague about the surprising episode. she is someone with experience dealing with young children and to my shock, supported marty's concerns. but instead of scrapping the idea outright, she suggested modifying things a touch. she suggested that i should just introduce the different skills to the home and make them available to the kids. she said not to put any expectations on their usage or routine, and thus not have rewards for time or consistent practice. in short, she suggested i make the whole affair less official. i was dubious of this and still liked my method better but thought this may be the middle ground marty and i obviously needed. and to give credit, marty was edging towards these same notions but didn't have the time or energy to express them more clearly.
so that night i re-pitched to marty and got her buy-in. in this new format i had some changes to consider but they were small and easily done. what i came up with was this. starting on the first monday of summer, i quietly introduced the first skill that was to be part of the summer challenge. every two weeks thereafter a new object would appear. midway through the kids figured out what was going on and finding out what the next challenge was before it was unveiled became as much of a pastime as the challenges themselves. in the end, here's what shook out.

THE 2009 SUMMER CHALLENGES
june 15th - tightrope / slack-line
june 29th - magic rope tricks
july 13th - ripstick
july 27th - trick-grade yo-yos

it was curious to see how the kids responded to each. bella was definitely the person most into the slack-line. after a couple days she started wanting to charge neighbor kids for lessons. i told her she had to be able to balance on there for five seconds herself before she was allowed to charge anyone. both kids seemed to like the magic tricks about the same. bella is now a proficient ripstick-girl (her father ain't half-bad either). and those yo-yo's were spot-welded to alex for most of our summer vacation.

so that is what the summer challenge program was about. i guess it was a success in that it made the list of things bella plans to take with her into her parenthood. friday movie night stands as my other proud addition to the home that made the cut. as for everything else, i'm beginning to understand the joy of grandparents watching from the sidelines now that they are not the one that has to divine, explain, and enforce the myriad of rules of a family home.