Well tonight was finals test night. He was going to lead me all the way to school so we knew his pace to time so we knew how early he had to leave the house. The rule was if he didn’t slow down to look for cars when the sidewalk crossed a street, he didn’t get to go.

He didn’t make it out of the neighborhood. Blew right though the first cross street. On his second mistake he realized what he did. He was devastated. You know what he was mostly upset about? Disappointing us.

That deserved an extra 10 min on the playground and a gentle talk on the way home.

Evan: Dad, can you buckle me up again?
Me: Sure. Why did you get unbuckled?
Evan: I don’t know.
Me: Well you unbuckled yourself, don’t you know why?
Evan: No, my eyes didn’t know what my hands were doing. That’s why.
Me: (smile from ear to ear all the way to work)

But probably not as excited as Holly because now she doesn’t have to.

So in an effort to get children to be more accepting of going on errands, do the following steps:

1. Layout the expectation that anything could happen on an errand. This may incline some of the more trusting kids to go along right away.

2. On a random weekend, say we have to do an errand and then go someplace totally unexpected and fun. Remind the kids how fun ‘errands’ can be.

3. The next time you have run some errands, remind the kids of time you did step #2. If that doesn’t work, reinforce step #1.

4. In the event that doesn’t work, proceed on your errand alone and text back pictures like these to your spouse. Then have your spouse show them to our kids.

5. When you get home, remind them that anything can happen when you run errands.

6. Repeat.

BTW, step #4 drove Sam and Evan nuts today.

Guess no one wanted to run errands with me and have lunch at McDonald’s. Oh well.

Go to the Flickr page to get better copies of the pics – Sam / Evan.