Autumn Challenge Parenting Hack

I love the weather in autumn, cooler evenings and a freshness to the mornings but still plenty of sun to be enjoyed. Except for when it’s raining!

In the pre-children days Autumn was always the perfect reading season. OK, every season is the perfect reading season. But once kids come along your opportunities to read something other than Wombat Stew sixty times in a day seems to decrease.

Never fear! I have your back friend!

Let me introduce you to “Secret Missions”.

I first discovered this idea after Christmas. The kids were grumpy at the lack of play space, but also refused to help pack up the Christmas tree. Sorry guys, you can’t have it both ways. So I told my 4-year-old son that I had a secret mission for him. He needed to try and pack up as many Christmas ornaments as he could before anyone noticed that they were missing. 

Success! 

When the 8-year-old found out, because the 4-year-old can’t actually keep a secret, she demanded her own secret mission. 

So far this year I have managed to convince them to put dishes away, clean up someone else’s mess, be polite for extended periods of time and even just be quiet long enough for Mummy to be able to finish a thought. 

Ones that didn’t work: sneak “meow” into a sentence, put a sticker on Daddy’s shirt, play nicely with each other and not fight over ridiculously small problems. 

But hey, we’re working on it!

If after trying out secret missions you’re kids are still looking for a bigger challenge we’ve created a scavenger hunt for them. You can download it here. 

Good luck!

This article will self destruct after reading.