Author: Jackie Pick

Jackie Pick is a former teacher and current writer living in the Chicago area. She is a contributing author to multiple anthologies, including Multiples Illuminated, So Glad They Told Me: Women Get Real about Motherhood, Here in the Middle, as well as the and the literary magazines The Sun and Selfish. She received Honorable Mention from the Mark Twain House and Museum for her entry in the Royal Nonesuch Humor Writing Competition. Jackie is a contributing writer at Humor Outcasts, and her essays have been featured on various online sites including McSweeney's, Belladonna Comedy, Mamalode, The HerStories Project, and Scary Mommy. A graduate of the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, Jackie is co-creator and co-writer of the award-winning short film Fixed Up, and a proud member of the 2017 Chicago cast of Listen To Your Mother.

Surviving Summer Funtimes 2019 — Week the Sixth. The Oreoiest

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Jackie Pick's avatarJackie Pick

These are the Days of Yes.

Yes to more.

Yes to extra.

Yes, you can do that.

Yes, we can do that.

But it all was qualified. Yes, after. Yes, once we. Yes, only if.

The qualifications, we thought, were good parenting. And they are. But last week we tried a new approach, a new yes.

Yes, and you set your schedule.

As long as the kids do their chores, practice music, get 60 minutes of exercise minimum, and read for pleasure by the end of the day, they get to make their own schedule of activities for the rest of the day (within reason, of course. We’re not dropping everything and running to Disney.) If we have plans made, they don’t get to opt out, especially dental visits.

My husband and I set some boundaries and limits on this and assigned ourselves veto power and the right to…

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