![\"\"](\"https:\/\/feedingandrew.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Grandmas-Cinnamin-Rolls.jpg\" "\\"Grandmas")
<\/a>\n\tGrandma's Cinnamon Rolls<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cAnd please bless the homeless and those without jobs, and the poor.\u00a0 Help them to find a house and work and stuff so they won\u2019t suffer so much,\u201d is a common refrain when it\u2019s Andrew\u2019s turn to say the dinner prayer.\u00a0\u00a0 I know he picked up on it from listening to my prayers that always have some variation on the theme that I intone when it\u2019s my turn.\u00a0\u00a0 I have to admit that it always warms my heart to hear him say those words, but it also gives me pause wondering what he might be feeling as he says it.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t so long ago that Andrew was one of those people whom we pray for each night.\u00a0\u00a0 Even before his mother died, he wasn\u2019t exactly living the highlife. After his mother passed away, it was a very different story.\u00a0 Suddenly he was living in a one-room apartment with five people, no bathroom, and a hotplate they called a kitchen. Obviously, food was scarce and limited.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t imagine what living that life must have felt like.\u00a0 When I hear him pray those words, I wonder if they are motivated by an image of earlier days, or is it just a mindless habit that has been ingrained over time like fastening a seatbelt when he gets into the car?<\/p>\n
Habit and motivation are two powerful ideas that often get pitted against each other.\u00a0 I can\u2019t tell you how many discussions I have had regarding intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation. I have to admit that before I had Andrew, more often than not, I chose extrinsic motivation as my control method of choice, as in, \u201cIf you learn your times tables, you will get to participate in the class pizza party.\u201d\u00a0 Having Andrew, however, puts things in a different light.\u00a0 Now, I was talking about my own son and I had to really think about where I stood on the subject.<\/p>\n
From the start I had so many dreams for Andrew.\u00a0 I imagined he would hear a Mozart concerto at Disney Hall and then be wild with desire to practice the piano the next day.\u00a0 I was sure that, regardless of the task at hand, I could create a vision of the future so clear that passion would take over and another Joshua Bell would be born.\u00a0 Turns out that it\u2019s not that easy.<\/p>\n
What I should have learned over my 20 years as an educator, I quickly learned as a father.\u00a0 Intrinsic motivation comes from being challenged enough by a task to keep it interesting, but being sufficiently capable at it to find pleasure in it.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s easy enough to find tasks that are challenging for a kid, but the other part takes time and patience\u2026 and bribes.\u00a0 I mean it.\u00a0 I have decided which side of the aisle I fall on this; a well-planned bribe is the ticket to life-long intrinsic motivation.\u00a0 Bear with me on this.<\/p>\n
Most tasks we ask kids to do take effort: musical instrument practice, reading, dishes, cleaning your room, and to do them well demands repeated practice.\u00a0 However once a child reaches a certain skill level, pleasure takes over and your job as a parent becomes easier.\u00a0\u00a0 The word \u201cbribe\u201d is a little overkill, but you have to find a way to make difficult tasks palatable until they find joy in doing it.\u00a0 The key to a successful incentive is to know what motivates your child.<\/p>\n
For Andrew, it was money.\u00a0\u00a0 He hadn\u2019t had much of it in his life and he would do just about anything for it.\u00a0 I capitalized on this and structured a daily schedule of chores that encompassed everything he needed to build good habits.\u00a0 This included homework, music practice, making his bed, brushing his teeth, and reading 30 minutes per day.\u00a0 When a task became a habit, I took the item off the chart and replaced it with a more complicated task such as washing the dishes or doing the laundry.\u00a0\u00a0 For this he earned one dollar per year old per week, so at nine he earned nine dollars per week, at ten he earned ten dollars, etc.\u00a0 The weekly total was divided into days and if he didn\u2019t do any one item for a particular day, he lost all the money for the day.\u00a0 He did not get money for a partial day\u2019s work; it was all or nothing.\u00a0 Andrew quickly chose to do it all.\u00a0 Every day.<\/p>\n
One of the most memorable successes was with Andrew\u2019s reading.\u00a0\u00a0 I was plowing him with books that he was required to read 30 minutes a day.\u00a0 He initially struggled with decoding and then vocabulary, but he would dutifully get the timer, pick his book, and read until the alarm went off.\u00a0 Immediately at the sound, he would put the book down and not think about it until the next day.\u00a0 It was all hard work and very little pleasure.<\/p>\n
This went on for over a year when I had to leave for a week on school business, and my mother came to stay with him during that time.\u00a0 Even though it was grandma, there was no wiggle room when it came to duties.\u00a0 One night when I called home, my mom said she couldn\u2019t get Andrew to read; he had finished his book and didn\u2019t have another one he wanted to read.\u00a0 I got Andrew on the phone and suggested he read Eragon by Christopher Paolini, a book his cousin had given him.\u00a0 He protested that he had already tried it and didn\u2019t like it.\u00a0 I reminded him that it had been over a year since he had tried reading it and that he was a much better reader now.\u00a0 I told him to just give it a try for 30 minutes, and if he didn\u2019t like it, grandma could get him a new book the following day.\u00a0 He agreed and dutifully got out the book and timer.<\/p>\n
I called about three hours later to check in and my mom said Andrew was still reading.\u00a0\u00a0 He has been an avid reader ever since.<\/p>\n
And unbelievably, he practices music, does the dishes, cleans his room, and does his homework.\u00a0 No complaints, ever.\u00a0 He\u2019s even found his Zen groove doing dishes and jamming to his Itunes.\u00a0\u00a0 The other amazing thing is that his allowance is now only connected to keeping his bathroom clean while everything else is just part of who he has become.<\/p>\n
Which brings me back to that prayer for the poor. \u00a0The truth is, I don\u2019t think Andrew has any thoughts of his past or even his mother\u2019s family as he recites that prayer.\u00a0\u00a0 He has come so far and is so profoundly my son that I\u2019m pretty sure his current vision of himself is completely disconnected from his earlier years.\u00a0\u00a0 After so much tragedy in his life, I\u2019m glad it is; he deserves to live guilt free.\u00a0\u00a0 But I don\u2019t want him to grow up thinking that charity and outreach to the poor ends with a nightly prayer before one of our decidedly bourgeois meals.\u00a0\u00a0 I want him to be internally motivated and have a habit of charitable giving and serving others.\u00a0 I\u2019m beginning to realize that it\u2019s the next big thing to put on the chores\u2019 chart.\u00a0 Maybe adopting a grandparent at a local rest home or getting in the habit of helping out at a soup kitchen will be one of those chores.\u00a0 I know he will complain at first, and I know that I may have to provide incentive like some major time with the Xbox.\u00a0\u00a0 I also know that somewhere down the line he will have that moment when he realizes that serving others is like a big love boomerang that comes whirling back to strike you right in the heart, leaving you a much better and happier person than before.<\/p>\n
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Nothing says incentive like something warm, sweet, and gooey.\u00a0 These are the cinnamon rolls that I grew up on and they were a part of the almost weekly visits by my grandparents.\u00a0 Even in her late eighties, my grandma Emma, barely able to walk would gently shuffle her feet to move herself around the kitchen as she sat on a well worn office chair.\u00a0 I wish I had paid more attention to what she was doing between shuffles, because her recipe cards are the product of someone who would never use a recipe.\u00a0 Her original recipe calls for a whopping 3 packages of yeast and uses 4\u00bd cups flour as a very loose starting point.\u00a0 She also used powder milk which I\u2019m sure was a left over habit from living through the depression.\u00a0 I\u2019ve made these rolls following her recipe and channeling her spirit to get the flour right, but making a few adjustments makes it a much easier and foolproof process.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>\n\tReady for Andrew<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Grandma Emma\u2019s Cinnamon Rolls (or Dinner Rolls)<\/strong><\/p>\n 1 1\/2 \u00a0packages dry yeast (or 3 teaspoons if using bulk yeast)<\/p>\n 1\/2 cup warm water<\/p>\n 4-1\/2 tablespoons sugar<\/p>\n 1-1\/2 teaspoons salt<\/p>\n 1 cup milk<\/p>\n 1\/3 cup melted butter<\/p>\n 2 eggs beaten<\/p>\n 4-1\/2 cups flour (I end up using almost 5 cups)<\/p>\n For cinnamon mixture:<\/strong><\/p>\n 1 cup melted butter<\/p>\n 1-1\/2 cups brown sugar<\/p>\n 2\/3 cup white sugar<\/p>\n Cinnamon (about 3 tablespoons)<\/p>\n Put yeast, warm water, sugar, and salt in bowl and let work for about 10 minutes until bubbly.\u00a0 Add the milk to the yeast mixture.\u00a0 Add butter to beaten eggs and then to yeast mixture.\u00a0 Add 2 cups flour to mixture and blend.\u00a0 Continue adding flour gradually to make dough consistency right for kneading.\u00a0 (May need more than the 4-1\/2 cups flour.)\u00a0 Place in bowl and let rise until double.\u00a0 Punch down. Let rest 5 minutes.<\/p>\n For dinner rolls:\u00a0 Pinch off dough and place in greased pan.<\/p>\n For cinnamon rolls: \u00a0Divide dough in half. \u00a0Roll out first dough to about a 12 by 16 rectangle; spread melted butter on dough.\u00a0 Add sugar mixture, then sprinkle cinnamon on top of sugar mixture.\u00a0 Roll into jelly-roll fashion, slice and place in greased pan.<\/p>\n