À Huis Clos: Why We Taught Calvin How To Use a Low-Tech Child Lock
Calvin had a good night last night, but he did wake up around 6 a.m. Thankfully, I’m an early riser, so I can tell our Echo Show, Show me Calvin’s bedroom right camera and background watch him while I start working.
If Calvin wakes up in the middle of the night, it’s possible for him to stay up for an hour or two. However, his medicine usually helps him sleep through the night, so he will typically get up for a few minutes at a time. The real concern recently, however, is when he wakes up and stays up. This is when he starts getting bored and the trouble can start.
Calvin’s bedroom has a child lock, but for the opposite reason you think.
Calvin’s bedroom has his Legos and coins, so we’ve left it open during the day. But in recent months, he has been going in there periodically after school and when he wakes up to go to the bathroom.
My wife Kristy had the brilliant idea to lock him out of his bedroom during the day with a child lock. (For safety reasons, we don’t use this at night.) This forces him to properly use his own bathroom.
On a whim, I asked Calvin a few weeks ago to lock his bedroom door. He picked up the child lock, threaded the zip-tie and locked it. Ironically, he’s not able to unlock it. This means that when Calvin gets up early, we can have the system tell him to go out of his room and lock the door himself. He’s basically locking himself out of his own bedroom. We’re hoping that this should prevent any bathroom problems before school.
