Rewarding My Son's Hard Work
This is my follow-up post, as promised, from my Teaching My Son a Good Work Ethic post yesterday.
I got home from work yesterday, and we all went out to try and knock out the next step of the sheep fence project: attaching all of the fencing to the posts. Success! We had just finished the last section and it was about 7:00pm. I turned to him and said, "Guess what?! That's the END of the sheep fencing!" He smiled and simply said, "Yeah!" with no further expectations. Innocence is so sweet. I waited a few seconds, then reminded him that with the work done, we could have our fun and he got to pick what we would do! This jogged his memory!!!
So... what did he choose?
We loaded up and hit the road, heading down the highway into town.
About 20 minutes later, we arrived. Even though he was saving his quarters, the Arcade used a digital card so the 1st Bank of Daddy exchanged his quarters for the digital card and added some of his own money, too.
The arcade is not big, but is the only one within 25 miles and one of two in the area, so beggars can't be choosy! Still, it was a lot of fun for us and more importantly, our boys.
For the size of the arcade, probably about 40 "games", they had a good selection of games that covered all age ranges. They also had Go Karts, Mini Golf, and Batting Cages.
This was our favorite attraction at the arcade. It's a two-person motion ride! You lay back in chairs as a large screen above projects the scene. It has surround sound and two large turbo fans to add to the sensation of movement! The chairs also moved (a lot). We probably did this one about three times. You could pick between 8 different "scenes". Our favorites were the runaway train, and haunted mine cart.
Coming in as a close second, was the Jurassic Park Dinosaur Hunter game. This was a two-player shooting game. You would sit in an enclosure and shoot (of course) dinosaurs. My wife liked it best, but she's also better at games than I am. It was nice that all four of us could fit and play the game at once--our youngest in my lap, and our eldest in my wife's lap.
We cashed out early, not using all of the money on the digital arcade card, and ended up with 175 tickets. Our son picked a slap bracelet and a Whoopee Cushion... both of which have been fun for everyone!
Thoughts
Fun of the Arcade aside, it was great seeing our son consciously reaping the reward from his work. This gives him motivation and us an example to point to in the future to help him.
Amazing! It's so great seeing fathers taking a hands-on approach to their child(ren)'s development!
I recently started a curation effort around parents on steem, and created the #steemdads and #steemmoms tags! I would love to see more posts about your child(ren). If you use one of these tags on your posts, I will be watching, upvoting, and promoting.
If you'd like to chat with other parents, I've also started the SteemParents Discord Channel!
Awesome, thanks! I'll keep in mind the #steemdads tag when I write posts on my kiddos. Thanks for the upvote and taking the time to comment.
Hi @thatsweeneyguy! i did not know about the tags #steemdads and #steemmoms until now. Most of my posts zero-in on my mommy experiences. I will definitely add these tags on my posts next time.
I just started the tags a couple days ago, so you're definitely catching the beginning of this initiative
That's cool! See you around! 😉
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I love that you are teaching your kids the idea that hard work pays off in the end. It's how we were raised and I see that value missing from so many of the young people I work with. They want things handed to them. We need more parents out there to hold the value of hard work dear and pass it on to their kids as well. Thanks for sharing! What a fun day!
Very true, that quality seems to be in great deficit today. Thank you for reading and taking the time to comment!
Children are gifts and blessings from God.... One day I hope to have one of my own.. Lovely post
I agree, they surely are! Here's hoping you get that blessing some day. Thanks!
I'm grinning from ear to ear just reading your post!
I love the arcade and have good memories with my kids. Even as teens they liked Dave & Busters but oh boy, was that a wallet buster! LOL
My favorite game was always skeeball. :D
Wallet buster indeed! I think I got short changed with the quarter conversions. LOL But it was well worth it for memories and our relapse into childhood. My wife loved skeeball most there, though it wasn't the old school type with wooden balls. :-)
Wow, congratulations! Happy kiddos, happy mommy and daddy!
And in that order, too! ;-) Thanks for commenting @arrliinn
Lol. I know coz that's normally the order in mine too. 😀
Great follow up to your 'work hard, play hard' piece. It is great to see young ones learning work ethic and the true value of hard work. That fence didn't put itself up! It'll be awesome to look back at the fence in a few years and remind your boys of that shared effort. Greatly inspiring buddy, I'm a SAHD of two and they work with me every day. Like you and many here - I believe in the old saying 'work hard, play hard'. 👍🏻👍🏻
"A real Bronx cheer" on the whoopie cushion 😆😂
Indeed! And yes! I've gotten a kick out of that saying on the cushion more than anyone else.. LOL