My girls have chores that they do each morning. They do the same chores for 3 months and then we switch. Chores are great for children. It gives them confidence, work ethic, responsibility and training. My girls enjoy chores as well...most of the time. One of the girls is struggling with maintaining focus and getting done what needs to be done. She has no trouble focusing on what she wants to do so I expect it to carry over. When William left for work yesterday morning, she was doing her chores. When William got home last night, she was still doing her chores! Our rule is that you finish chores before you do anything else and if that causes you to stay up all night or miss fun things then so be it. Once the chores are finished, you are still responsible for any other work that should have been done like schoolwork, etc. Yesterday she missed visiting with her Mimi. Last night we had planned on the girls and I baking some bread and a cake, she missed it. Finally she was finished and completed schoolwork around 11pm. She is already dragging this morning, but that was her choice and she will deal.
I am okay with all of that, but now, oh now we are to what I can't stand! A couple of my girls have real problems with picking up after themselves. I understand, I am the same way. I struggle with that all of the time and I feel bad getting onto them about it when I do the same thing. But I don't want them to grow and and have that struggle when I can easily help them. One of our newer rules is that if you leave your clothes laying out where they do not belong, you get one warning (per 2 days) and after that I take all of your clothes, shoes, jackets, etc away. We will pick you one pair of pants, shirt, undergarments, jacket and shoes and that is it. If after 24 hours you have demonstrated an ability to be responsible with those, you will get one more of each back and this will go on until they have their clothes back and have learned to be responsible with them.
Okay, above mentioned child left her clothes on the bathroom floor last night after already receiving her warning. I know that she had a horrible day yesterday. Not only did she have the struggle with getting her chores done, but she accidentally put dish soap in the dishwasher and flooded the kitchen with bubbles. No big deal, but she was very upset about it. I hate adding something onto all of this! But we told her it would happen and if we don't do it, that set a really bad precedent. I really don't like doing this!!
If you see one of my children in the same outfit three days in a row, you will know who it is and please give her a hug because she will probably be having a yucky day!
3 comments:
HA! Love the pictures! I did that one time at my sister's house. I was visiting for the summer (she is 8 years older than me) and I was helping with the dishes. I loaded the dishwasher (did that wrong too!) and filled both dispensers with dish soap. I was thoroughly proud of myself! We walked in later to a HUGE, HUGE mound of bubbles all over the kitchen floor! That was my very first time to have ever used a dishwasher (we never had one growing up) and it was quite a disaster!
Oh and by the way, I like your new look. I may have to copy your idea...
I didn't realize that the wrong kind of soap would do that! Yikes.
I like the apporoach you are taking about the clothes. I may have to try it. I've got a kid who thinks the floor is the closet. Drives me crazy. I'm afraid this kid will grow up to be one of those incredibly messy people who is featured on the cable channels getting professional help in cleaning their home.
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