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What Do You Do When They Say “I Don’t Want to Read That”

A picture of a little boy pouting in a chair.
I don’t wanna.

Today’s blog post is more of a plea for advice than anything else, because I find myself at a loss.

You see, I’ve been blessed with two kids who love to read as much as I do.

Until now.

Up until last week, I’ve never had to beg, bribe or threaten either of my children to read a book.

Then, the beginning of school and the first reading assignment came along.

This year, for the “beginning of the year reading project,” the school assigned one book to all students rather then giving them a choice of books.

And it’s a book he hates. Which means he has absolutely no desire to read the thing.

Unfortunately for me, the boy and I share one very annoying trait: stubbornness.

Like me, if the youngest is uninterested in something, there’s very little in the world that can make him do it. While I didn’t outgrow this annoying trait, I did eventually discover that some things have to be done whether they’re interesting or not. It’s a lesson I’m now in the process of trying to teach a stubborn youngster.

The boy who finished the 7th Harry Potter book in less than a day has taken a week to read 110 pages. I’ve tried everything: orders, cajoling, bribery, threats. One or more of those have worked well in the past, but we’re still only 110 pages into the book.

He’d rather do dishes, by hand, than read this book.

He’s gone so far as to take a book from his personal library, with a cover similar to the “evil” one, to fool his stepdad and I into thinking he’s reading the assigned one. (Once we caught on, the imposter book got confiscated.)

So now I make a heartfelt appeal to you: When you’ve run against a similar situation with your children, how do you help them learn that whether they like it or not, they have to do it anyway?

Photo Credit: Karen Bristow

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Odd Finds in the Memory Vault

Karen Bristow and her sister, circa 1983-1984
The tall, goofy-looking brunette is me, somewhere between 3rd and 4th grade. The cute little blond is my sister.

Ever wonder what causes certain people from childhood to stick in your brain for no discernible reason?

People who, when they pop up on your mental movie screen, cause you to pause and think, “Whoa. Where’d they come from?”

My memory vault is stocked with some strange standouts. I mean, I can understand remembering my very first BFF, the first kid to bully me in school, or the first boy who’s heart I broke.

Those people had a profound enough impact in my life to scorch their own trail to my long-term memory.

But Ian and Derek from Mrs. Gould’s 4th grade class? We did nothing more than share space in the back of the classroom and swap yogurt for Twinkies at lunch. I’d understand remembering them for nearly three decades if we’d at least swapped spit. Maybe it was the unique name or the leather jackets? Or just the fact that they were complete opposites.

Ian, who to me, had the coolest name ever, sat to the right of me for most of the school year. His desk was as orderly and pristine as mine was a black hole that swallowed up my homework and barfed out excuses.

He came to school every day in dress slacks, loafers, a button down shirt and either a navy or red sweater vest. He never misplaced his homework or had to borrow a pencil. Nor did he have a problem loaning his pencils to me when I needed one. He was just a sweet kid who, thankfully, hated Twinkies as much as I hated yogurt.

Behind him sat tall, dark and Polish Derek. The “Bad Boy” of 4th grade. (If the 4th grade can have “bad boys” that is.) He wasn’t a jerk, that I remember, but he sure could pull off an attitude that matched his “Thriller” uniform; leather pants, either black or red, a matching jacket full of zippers and buckles, and high-top shoes.

He was the only kid in the school who could outrun me, but not by much. And if my desk was a black hole, then his was a supernova. Nothing that entered his desk came out unscathed, or at all.

Though the three of us did team up once in a while (a very unlikely-looking trio) for assignments or kickball, I can’t pinpoint one thing about them that stands out enough to make them so extremely memorable. Yet I’ve named my firstborn after one and pillaged the memories of both for personality traits and quirks for characters that haven’t yet found a home in stories.

Somewhere, somehow, in the ten-month span of 4th grade, they did something that caused my subconscious to freeze-frame them permanently in my mental photo album. And the ego part of me sometimes wonders, “do I stick out for no good reason in their memories too?”

Do you have any memories of people that cause you to ask yourself – “What the heck? Why him/her?”

Photo Credit: My Dad