Overwhelmed at 2nd grade....(please read it to the end)

Twenty (20) minutes a night. I’m supposed to read with my son or he should be reading on his own for 20 minutes a night the school says. Sounds simple and what kind of wholesome mom wouldn’t love to just sit for a mere 20 minutes with their child and read? I want to, I can’t. Some nights I don’t see how I can. I’m a good mom and we are a lucky family in this scenario too! My son has a short bus ride home, he’s not in a ton of extracurriculars right now, my husband works from home and can often be around sooner after work than if he commuted somewhere. Why can’t I pull this 20 minutes thing off??? Well, (excuse time-here we go)... I also have a 3 year old daughter who is into everything and potty training yet needing mom for all! I need to make dinner for the family and try to make it moderately nutritious, while getting it on the table before everyone gets “hangry”. We always have at least 30 minutes of math homework, spelling, vocabulary, and sight words to learn and study every night. My son comes home wiped from a long independent day of learning and usually wants to snack and veg out a little then maybe play like kid should do. Well don’t forget all this needs to be done, eat dinner (sometimes taking longer than it should); clean up said dinner, oh and bathe two reluctant kids, put on pjs and bed. But ya, 20 minutes to sit and focus on reading with someone who doesn’t want to, while my daughter hangs on me- doesn’t scream the right way to learn to love reading. I suppose a book before bedtime counts, we always do that, but it’s rarely for 20 minutes and by bedtime it’s nice to have mom read to you. I’ve been perplexed by this proverbial rubix cube of post school to dos and I’m determined to get it solved though. Baby steps in place and ready to be brave, not ignore a problem but work to a solution. Here we go: - trying epic the iPad library to get some solo reading in but under the mask of screen time to sweeten the pot. This sort of works, but it has its drawbacks. Music works the system to find audio or read to me books and he isn’t focusing so much I. The key reasons to read as he is the emoji update he can earn. - Physical book! I’m now coming to terms w just running a little later with homework time and reading a chapter book with him to build skills together as part of that. I search amazon for the perfect fit to his interests of animals and video games to find “push start” series. It’s a comic style book that’s easier and hopefully will catch his interest and build confidence. All this done after my husband gets done with work to watch my younger daughter. So I’m still building on it but I vow instead of excuses to be brave and conquer the barriers of school work as a challenge I’m up for to help my kids with as a mom, rather than hide from.

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