Not a bad problem...

But still a bit of a problem. Or at least a minor dilemma.

You see, George has gotten so efficient at doing his work that yesterday he was done by about 9:30 (he's definitely a morning person). Our deal has been that when he completes all his work for the day, he can play computer or DS games pretty much until his heart's content.

In the past, a very good day would mean he'd be done by about noon, but usually it was more like 1:30 or even later. It used to be that when he first woke up he liked to read and/or play in his room before getting started on his work. This was fine by me. I have never had to make reading part of his work in a formal way, as I'm sure I've mentioned, as he does it very often and very willingly anyway. All kinds of books, on all kinds of topics. And playing in his room with his toys for a couple of hours or so is, I think, a perfectly fine use of his time. He has some really nice toys and he always plays with them in such imaginative ways. I do think that that sort of activity can be not merely fun but also an important and constructive part of growing up.

So, he'd read and/or play for awhile, then do some work, then maybe read some more, or perhaps ask to watch a documentary (usually history or science), then get some more work done, and, well, you get the idea. He's been very good about getting all of his work done pretty much every day, and most days has ended up with 1-2 hours of time to play on his DS or the computer, which I think is reasonable. Every afternoon at what would be more or less the end of a traditional school day, either he has Tae Kwon Do or he plays with his friends in the neighborhood, so there has always been a sort of natural end to his electronic game time. (I don't let him play them after dinner--too much stimulation too close to bedtime.) It's all been going perfectly smoothly.

Until now, when it seems to be going too smoothly! He has figured out that if he starts working from the second he wakes up, and doesn't take a break, he can be on his DS before I've even made breakfast. Somehow, that just doesn't seem quite right to me.

It's not that he doesn't have enough work to do; he does. My husband, who teaches 4th grade, was a little surprised that George is able to get everything done so quickly, and was wondering if his load was too light. But I asked him to imagine that he had only one student, and it was his best one, and he had two hours to teach her everything he would normally cover in the course of a day--did he think he could? For sure. There is so much time spent in a day on explaining things more at length to the students who don't pick it up right away, and then doing lots of practice to make sure they really have it, to say nothing of recess and lunch and time spent going to a different classroom for music or library or whatever.... When you do away with all of that, it's not so hard to see how a full day's worth of work could, especially for someone who is super bright and right on task, be accomplished in a couple of hours or so.

So, what to do? I don't really think it's fair to create more work for him (well, maybe I could add just a teeny bit...). He knows what it is that he's supposed to be doing, and giving him more work would be like punishing him for being efficient, and I don't think that's a good approach. Besides, when I think about what to make him do--should I make him do twice the chores? Should I make him do two online math sessions a day instead of one? (He started back up with math again; yay! It did take a very gentle push from me, but he did say that he was actually starting to miss it. But maybe that's a topic for another post!) Should I make him write more? All of these things seem kind of punitive to me, and I think they would to him, too. I certainly don't want him to get discouraged and then slack off. He is working hard and learning plenty, so that's not really the problem. I guess the problem is just too much DS/computer game time.

So maybe I just need to set limits on that. I preferred the natural limits imposed by his daily work on one end and his afternoon schedule on the other, but if that's not going to work anymore I guess I will just need to come up with some sort of system/limit that I'm comfortable with and that he doesn't find too discouraging. Because, again, I like that the game-time is such a strong motivator for him to get his work done. I may have to remind him to practice his recorder or to clean the cat box, but I never have to hound him or argue with him about it. And while he actually enjoys most of his learning activities (the chores, not so much!), I know that at least part of what gets him going on all of these things is that he knows they're what's standing between him and his games. I think it's kind of a delicate balance and it's working fantastically well, really. I don't want to blow it. But neither do I want my son on a computer game for five hours straight.

As problems go, it's a pretty good one to have, I guess! Suggestions would be most welcome...