I see him quite a bit on my visits back to Seattle since his grandma (my sister), who babysits him, is staying at my place. I usually tease him about the importance of school -- if he doesn't attend school, then he can always work at McDonald's to work instead. I am only using McD as an example because Gavin is familiar with it. I would tell him "to make sure that my hamburger is just right when I make my order from him." Mind you, this is only a 3-4 year old kid during the times that I was teasing him; he turned five this past spring. He would excitedly reply to me, "yeah, I will give you a good hamburger." So I am thinking that this is the wrong tack to approach this kid since he considers working at McD to be a choice position.
My next approach to get my point across was to warn him that if he doesn't go to school, he will be cleaning the bathrooms at McD. He would react quickly with a "ewww, that's yucky." His cousin Cameron (attending the same pre-school that Gavin dropped out from, and not one to shy away from my banter with Gavin or to mind her own business) would jump in and reinforce the point I was trying to convey to him by saying, "yeah, you would have to clean all the pee and poo in the bathrooms."
This has been an ongoing banter between Gavin and me for the last two years. This coming school year is the start of kindergarten for him. I usually encourage him about school by telling him the fun things he has been missing out from by not being in pre-school with friends.
A picture of Gavin from Aug 2005.
Photo from his first birthday.
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