We All Love A Good Redemption Story

One of 1-1's vernacular is "Make-Up Minutes," which is the opportunity for your child to take back some or all of the minutes you collected from them. It's truly great to earn back something that was lost.

Now that school has started for my twin boys (first grade) as well as for me, their home school teacher during COVID-19, I am receiving minutes from them more than ever before. Most days I can only collect 5-10 minutes, but with the transition into this weird new school situation, they are less regulated than they would be in a classroom with a real teacher and their peers. Transitions mean less regulation. Less regulation means more time not listening. And that means more minutes for me to claim. But I am honesty racking up more minutes than I want or need at this time.

What to do in that situation? Let your child redeem their minutes back from you. There are so many things they can do for you that could reward them the minutes they lost and help you in the process. You can give them chores that they are not normally responsible for. But that might require you to be with them to instruct them, which might actually turn into them not listening and giving you more minutes.

Instead, you can have your child redeem their minutes by doing something that teaches them and enriches their lives without you needing to show them how to do anything. For me, I offer minutes back if they read for 30 minutes. If they can do this by themselves in a quiet spot, then I will redeem them 1 minute for every 1 minute they read quietly on their own.

Other ways for your child to redeem their time could be exercising, drawing something special, make a LEGO creation or other learning exercises. These are the things we do with our boys to decrease their minutes and increase their intellect.

Give it a try! Also check out our 1-1 Tips page for more ideas.