After reading a bedtime story to Jakjak about a brother who promised his younger sister an ice cream treat if she could read ten words, I challenged Jakjak to the same. I told him that if he could read one "green back" book from his Dr. Seuss books (classified as such for children just starting to read), I would buy him ice cream. This would already be easy for him, and I knew he would be able to do it (albeit rather slow on the more difficult words). But I challenged him anyway because sometimes he can be just as lazy as his dad.
He did a one-up on me by saying he can only read a "pink-back" book, for which I agreed. The only thing is, there is no "pink-back" Dr. Seuss book! He meant his book about "Matter" whose front to back cover was pink. It only had simple one-liners on each page and, I found out shortly after he finished reading, that he had practically memorized the book (this, according to mum).
He then did another one-up on me by stating the obvious, he has a cough and ice cream would be bad for him. So he asked if he could get a toy car instead, to which I agreed, since it was true that he has a cough. In the end, the toy car ended up being more than twice the price of the ice cream (not that I'm complaining, but he's been getting the upper hand on me).
After redeeming his prize, it made me realize that I needed to re-think my strategy. It's cool to do this as a sort of motivation, but like any in-store promotion, it should be of equal value. Somehow, my love for Jakjak simply overtook the objective part of the exercise. I'm not complaining. There's always a next time, for both of us.
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