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confessions of a slacker mom… episode 3

hopefully this is the final episode.

last night, DADDY had a little chat with layla. he basically told her, “you have to do your chores.” I love how stuff like that is more effective coming from him…

so this morning, layla was up in plenty of time. she did sleep in her clothes again, and I think we’ll stick with that unless she asks not to at some point, and then we may TRY a night in jammies and see how the morning goes. tuesday is a band morning, so I have to take the little kids with me to drop off shane. (after a freak day in sweatpants, shorts guy is back in shorts. thought you’d like to know.) when we got back to the house, told layla to get busy. she didn’t really say much, but went in and looked at her chart. the first card was ‘get dressed’, so she kind of giggled, and moved it over. the next one was ‘make bed’. she whined and complained and told me that she didn’t want to have to do it. I reminded her that she needed to do it and it wasn’t that hard. she’s done it herself plenty of times before. we argued for a minute about how she was to do it, and she eventually went off to do it. about 10 minutes later, I went in the room with micah to get him dressed. her sheets and comforter were all straightened out already, so I handed her her pillows and a couple of stuffed animals that had fallen on the ground (her bed is the top bunk). she finished up by arranging all of her animals in some grand display, and I told her to come down. she went on with the rest of her chores, and was SO excited when she got to the breakfast card. she was ecstatic when she ordered her cinnamon toast and apple juice! she ate it with plenty of time to spare, wiped her face, brushed her teeth, and got her coat, backpack and shoes. before we left the house, I gave her her ticket and she was thrilled! I thanked her for doing such a good job and being agreeable, but I told her that tomorrow, I just wanted her to work on being a little faster at making her bed. she agreed.

we had no tears, no yelling, everything got done, and we got to school even before shane was off the band bus! and that’s something that NEVER happens!

I hope I’m done with this whole episode. but I know that if it’s not this, it’ll be something else…

I’m glad dave decided to have his little chat with layla. I was not so fond of the fact that her reaction to having breakfast moved to the end of the chore list was just to rebel against the chores completely. that’s not really what I was going for.

and some of you have asked about our chore system. here’s the link to what we use. it’s called “accountable kids”. it’s not perfect, but I love the flexibility of it; I love the visual cues (for non-readers and easily distracted people); I love that it’s not a ‘list’; which can be overwhelming to some kids; and I love that the completion of chores is tied into earning privileges like tv and video games. check it out!

http://accountablekids.com/program.aspx

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