Gup-X

After a number of things were pointing to the answer,  we  finally listened and got the kids doing jobs for money in the house.  This worked for a number of reasons.  They had to pay for damaged or wasted items (within reason)  and on top of that Evan wanted to buy the Octonauts magazine every month,  but actually he really wanted to buy a new magazine every day.  Our pockets weren't willing to run to that,  and I was hopeful that this new scheme would have the consequence of helping the kids learn a bit  about money management,  saving,  respect for property as well.  I had resisted the idea for some time as I was uncomfortable with the external motivation that this promoted rather than my preferred way of working,  from internal motivation.

I got over my ideals,  by realising that the benefits were definitely going to outweigh the risks.

So since then we have improved participation in household chores,  and I feel less uptight about the motivation thing, as doing chores in the house is never going to be an easy thing to encourage, and I feel a little bit more in control of my life as well as things spiral out of control. 

So back to the Octonauts and the Gup X, which was the original impetus for this post.  This weekend Evan had earned enough money to buy the Gup X, at £25 this was no mean feat with his only income coming directly through his work around the house.  We had a Gup-o-meter to help him see his monetary progress (and do a little bit of maths as well).

The satisfaction he got from having worked towards this himself means so much to him, and he is very proud of himself.  His next landmark has already been marked up in his sights - it is the Gup Mega-Pack - a pack of a number of Gups, which originally was going to be bought by Autumn, but she is not very interested in earning money so not that motivated to do chores presently.  Prior to this project Evan earned money for Peso's (Evan's most preferred character) Gup, the Gup-E. He developed a short term and long term savings as on a monthly basis he buys his Octonauts magazines, without fail for the last 5 months.  We have given him an increase in the amount he gets for jobs since he planned to save for the Gup X, as it felt like he had to work too hard, and would lose motivation if we kept the piecework payment at 20p per job or 15 minute unit of time. It is now nicely settled at 60p, which seems to be enough to help him to get to his desired amount, but not so much that it kind of feels a little bit of a token style gesture towards money management.

There have been a few set-backs along the way in the form of having to pay money back for destroyed or wasted items... such as the day he decided it would be really fun to smear the wall with all of my foundation and create a mixture using many of the different items in the bathroom... as it turns out the second of which was to make some liquid soap so he could clean up the mess. Immediately my blood boiled, but then I calmed down and listened and realised that he was trying to put things right, and maybe a little bit of experimenting with making mixtures, even really making liquid soap may help. (as it happens in the end, we never did this, but it can always be returned to if he is interested at a later date)

Going back again, just filling you in a bit about how Octonauts have shaped our lives... So for as long as Autumn has been with us The Octonauts have been a large part of our lives… It began with first watching the Octonauts on television. And soon progressed into a regular game at which both Autumn and Evan assigned themselves characters which were similar to themselves. Evan took on the role of Peso the Penguin, who is the Medic. Helping animals that are sick or hurt.  Obviously he had an affinity for this character, and would most of the time choose to be it during games, however, he found that occasionally when playing with friends others would like to be Peso, so Evan would sometimes play the character Tweak, the engineer, or occasionally Kwazzi, the kitten Pirate, who is the daredevil of the crew.

The games at the beginning seemed to evolve from Evan’s penchant for having games of cbeebies programmes with his friend Summer.  The first of which was Mr Bloom’s Nursery.  As time has gone on the games have become more intricate and more involved.  They have moved on from simply replicating a particular episode, into games where they really embody the characters they are playing.  The friends who have got most involved with these games are Oscar, who usually plays Kwazi, and Tom who will often choose to play Shellington, and Amy, his sister, who will opt for Dashi Dog.

I have had limited involvement in the actual games, my presence is definitely not a sought after thing in these games, but I have heard them, and listened to the conversations and play, and found them to be an incredible source of fun, cooperation, information exchange and actually played a key role in the development of Tom and Evan’s very important relationship.

Evan and Autumn will both invariably attempt to instigate Octonauts play with anyone, or everyone they encounter... to a mixed response.  One person who has shared the love nearly as much as we have is Oscar.  Evan was so keen to show Oscar the Gup-X today, that he brought it to the climbing wall with him.  This evening, after a good 5 hours of play ( not all Octonauts based) Evan said that the thing he was most grateful for that day was showing him the Gup-X, and he was so happy about this because of the excitement he showed about it.  

Interestingly, it was only on holiday last Summer that Evan and Autumn got their first Octonauts products, (my mum bought them some for them to play with on holiday). Up until that point it had been pretend play without any toys, apart from a medical kit which he put together for his role as Peso.
A few of our Octonauts stuff.