Last May I instituted some significant changes in how I ran the house and the kids. I called it the NewWorld Order and wrote and entry about it. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sandratayler/2004/05/30/)
Our lifestyle has changed significantly since I put those new rules into effect. The kids have grown and changed, Howard is home alot more, I’ve neglected my duty to maintain the law, and so it is time to institute another New World Order.
The first step is to be more dilligent enforcing the rules I put into place last May. The kids need to be doing their five morning things and one chore every day. I need to make sure they don’t get to play with electronic entertainment or friends unless they do.
The second step is for me to stop doing their Saturday morning work for them. I’ve set up the system. They know what they have to do before they can play with friends or electronic stuff. If I help, I end up doing most of the work while listening to complaints about how they need help because it is too hard. If I refuse to help I’ll have about 2 weeks of whiney unpleasantness and then they’ll do their work solo without complaints because they know that complaints just add to the length of time without reducing the work load. (I’ve gone through this process before and yet I keep forgetting and helping too much.)
Those steps are simply reinstituting things I’ve been enforcing more often than not for the last 9 months. Here comes the new stuff.
Step three. Kiki, Link, and Gleek are each assigned a night to be the official “Kitchen Helper”. The Kitchen Helper sets the table for dinner, helps prepare dinner, helps clean up after dinner, helps load the dishwasher, and helps sweep the floor. I’ll never have kids capable of doing these things if I don’t spend some time and effort teaching them.
Step four. Every day I need Gleek and Patches to have a quiet time where they practice sitting still. I’ll start at about 2 minutes and gradually extend the time. While they are sitting still I’ll read from pictureless storybooks so that they learn how to sit still and listen. This is specifically aimed at teaching them how to be calm and quiet in public places like church.
Step five. I’ve spent some time creating cards for a game over the past few days. The game is Tayler Family Trivia. On the cards are questions like “Where do we keep the scotch tape?” or “How do you clean a toilet?” Each correctly answered question gets 5 points. There are also Bonus cards. Bonus cards say things like “Get 5 points for every empty garbage can in the house” or “Get 10 points if you did your 5 morning things today”. There are also Oh No! cards. Oh No! cards cause people to lose points for household infractions “Lose 2 points for every piece of your clothing left on the floor” I intend to introduce this game tomorrow. Then we’ll play it again in another week or so to see whether we can improve our scores. Hopefully the game will have kids noticing when they put clothes on the floor or if garbage cans are empty. I read an article on this game by a woman who said it made a huge difference in the behavior of her two kids.
Two old things and three new ones are more than enough for me to try to keep track of. Especially since I’ve got to maintain things like homework enforcement, regular meals, and regular bedtimes.
