Day 4

If you lead them they will follow. Last night one of my kids came to my room and said, "Mommy, you can't come downstairs, the TV's on." Mind you, they have been stripped of their TV-watching privileges for a few weeks. During the school year the kids don't get to watch television on school days. In the summer the rule was that they couldn't watch TV until 6pm on the weekdays. A few times I caught them sneaking and watching a program. Then they would point to each other and say, "He/she turned it on." In any event, I warned that even if one person broke the rule and watched TV I was going to unhook the cable and all would suffer. Lo and behold, I caught one of my sons red-handed and I did what I promised. But because my husband is not bound by my goal or the kids punishment he put a program on (in his defense, it was something Discovery Channel-ish).

So in the end, it's nice to see that even my seven-year-old wants to keep me accountable to the promise I made to myself. But I have a feeling that she thinks that even if I glance at a television show something bad will happen to me.