but he was still happy to just chill with us...maybe if we banished him to his room, but that seems cruel.
Not cruel, it's about setting clear rules that avoid rewarding lying. No matter how we twist it when our kids tell us they are sick just to stay home they are lying and then getting away with it. Worse they feel like it's a reward as they are skipping out on something they don't like while getting to do things they do like. Very bad pattern to reinforce IMO.
I'm too much of an idealist. Why can't we find something we love to do.
Recently I dumped the business I really didn't enjoy and instead am doing something I really enjoy. My income is probably a little lower then if I had kept the other business going full throttle then instead pulling back and slowly getting my other business up and running. Now I've started a business from scratch to do something I really love doing.
But no matter how much I love doing my business there are plenty of things I don't love that must be done. Like tomorrow morning I need to be on the road at 5:30am, which will feel like 4:30am due to the stupid time change. I'm a night owl so getting up at what will feel like 3:45am is not even remotely something I love.
If I took the not doing things I don't love then tomorrow never gets started, my kids don't eat, mortgage doesn't get paid, and so forth. Now 1 time wouldn't cause the end of things, but a few days of skipping the things I don't love would quickly lead to financial ruin for my family.
Now this is from someone who picked what I'm doing. Built my own business doing what I want to do. I still have parts of my day each day that I'll never love, or even like, yet must be done.
So yes I do feel it's unrealistic to think that anyone can get by in life by only doing things that they love. It's a great goal to constantly strive for, not the pursuit of only doing things we love but rather to fill our lives with as many things that we love as possible while doing the necessary things in life that allows us to do what we love.