Many of you are aware of our up coming trip to Virginia/Dc area. My kids are beyond excited and are counting down the days until we leave. They also have been wanting to do a little extra in the chores department to earn some spending money. Cameron has been the worst with hounding me about what he can do to earn extra money. Here in lies the problem. I don't feel like they should be paid for the things I expect them to do anyways. I have come up with a few things- like cleaning up all the dog poop, weeding, and other things that aren't part of their weekly chores. But of course they don't want to do THAT! So, after a particularly BAD day I came up with this...
If they can not whine, complain, fight, throw temper tantrums or attitude, PLUS obey, and be kind to each other for a full 24 hours I would give them $20! That's it!
Okay, so day one. Cameron lasted 15 minutes before he lost it with his sister. McKenzie made it a whole 45 minutes.
Day two was much better. Cameron had gone 9 hours! McKenzie was about 7 hours. It was really sad about Cameron. If he had only hung on for about 2 more hours he would have been going to bed and slept for a HUGE portion of his time. Darn- I don't give second chances :)
Day three. Sunday- Mother's Day. Cameron and McKenzie were doing great, until it was time to go to church. Out goes Cameron before we even made it into the car. Out goes McKenzie before we make it over to the church.
Today is day 4, and yes, they have already lost it.
Apparently it is really hard to get along with you family and be PLEASANT for 24 hours. I have faith that they can do it. And every morning I will start their time over (the time is 7:00am- 7:00am). Until then I have 2 twenty dollar bills burning a hole in my wallet.
3 comments:
that's awesome! We have a trip across country this fall and we told the kids we'd give them $10 if they slept for the whole plane ride out there....they are planning on making it---we'll see how it goes :o) Good luck!
Haha! My friends did something similar with their kids on road trips. They could give them a roll of dimes at the start of the trip (with inflation you could give them quarters). Every time they misbehaved in th car they lost a dime. When they got to their destination they could keep the money they had left.
Sometimes it's easier to be good if you can actually see and heft the goods. :)
Good luck!
At first I wanted to ask if I did all those things if I could have your $20. Then I realized I may not be able to do it either. Good luck with that! :) - Teri
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