One of the best things about having kids is that you get to improve them. You get to see what they’re made of, what they can accomplish, how they react to sticks and carrots, how changing their environment in subtle ways can change their perspective.

In short, mouse, maze, cheese, and electric shocks. Sweet.

But you have to be subtle, oh so subtle. You have to know when to hold back before they turn on you, revolt against the experiment, and end up outside of 7Eleven with a tattoo on their forehead.

When you want them to eat more vegetables, you just put it on their plate without saying anything. Maybe they’ll just eat it and not notice it. Maybe they’ll protest. Then you make a bargain. One pea for a treat. If it doesn’t work, you back down. No one wants a pea show down. However, the peas will reappear on the plate two days later. The mousie may just be too exhausted to protest and eat the damn pea.

Every parent worth their salt knows the reappearing pea trick. I tried a more complicated experiment this summer. I tried to get my oldest son to love reading books by himself. I wanted him to plop in the middle of the lawn on a warm summer morning and read without urging. I had a plan that I executed in the beginning of the summer, which was surprisingly controversial. I thought I would let you all know how it went.

We started off reading the Magic Tree House book series. The book series worked very well for Jonah. He liked knowing what to read next. He didn’t have to keep investing energy in getting to know new characters of a book. He liked being able say that he was up to Book X in the series. The stories were also right up Jonah’s alley, because the main characters traveled through time to Ancient Rome and Greece and Egypt. I found the characters to be a little too PC for me; the studious boy and the adventuresome girl were really cardboard. Jonah didn’t seem to mind.

At the beginning of the summer, we had stickers on the fridge for incentives for reading. That worked okay in the beginning, but we didn’t make past July. It was too boring for either of us to remember to do. Also, by August, his reading had improved so much that he didn’t need urging to read.

I tried to keep our activities minimal in order to encourage him to read spontaneously during the day. Reading on the lawn never happened. He never picked up a book on his own during the day. I would sometimes suggest picking up a book, but he also found something else to do. He’s a reading-at-night sort of person. At night, he would eagerly read his chapters to us.

We made reading a priority at night and here’s where we reaped the best rewards. Before this summer, he loved being read to, but needed to have better fluency himself. We started off the summer with him just reading the first page of every chapter. Then he would read one chapter, and we would read two. Then he read four chapters on his own. Then he read a whole book. One night, we got home too late for stories, and he took his book into bed with a flashlight.

So, I would say we had mixed success. He loves reading at night. The fact that he became a better reader definitely made him like reading more. He didn’t become a read-with-abandon type of kid, but maybe that will come. Meanwhile, he’s going into second grade with a huge headstart.

Jonah’s summer reading is the smallest of experiments around here. The biggest project is always Ian’s speech. Another day for that one.