08.05.08
Posted in Kid's Responsibilities at 12:06 pm by CreditMom
My 3 kids came home from summer sleepaway camp on Friday along with their 9 loads of laundry. My 14 year old’s first statement was, “Mom, how are you going to do all this laundry?” Without missing a beat I said, “I’m not, YOU are!” That pretty much put an end to our blissful 4 weeks of relaxation while the kids were in summer camp.
After a month of a clean house, peace and harmony and dining out, my husband and I were quickly snapped back into reality with that one comment. The twins, while in sleepaway camp, hadn’t slept in the same room in a month so they were already at each other’s throats and my 14 year old immediately became surgically attached to his Mac notebook.
We gave them the weekend to come down from their summer camp high and then we snapped them back into reality with a family meeting last night. So here is the non-negotiable deal we presented to them.
Chores: Pretty simple: do your designated chores without prompting or you don’t get allowance. If you don’t get allowance, then on the weekend, when you want to see that movie, there won’t be any money to see it. Oh and by the way, children’s chores do not consist of making beds and wiping down the toilet after use…those fall under responsibilities below.
Responsibilities: Also pretty simple: responsibilities come first, privileges come as a result of responsibilities. You didn’t clean up the kitchen, bathroom or family room? Well, there’s no TV, no computer, no playing outside and certainly no video games until that’s done. If you don’t bring your wallet with you, there are no purchases and the response to “but Mom I’ll pay you back when I get home” is “NO.”
Conservation: Leave the lights on or the water running and it’s 50c each offense. It’s not a bottomless pit and our kids need to understand this.
As I re-read this post it seems pretty logical to me. Now to enforce it. Why can’t it ever be as easy at it sounds???
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07.02.08
Posted in Kid's Responsibilities at 9:13 am by CreditMom
Last week my twins broke their RockBand drums. Since they’re twins we’ll never know who actually did the final damage but I’m used to that, as they have grown up in a world of “we” and “us”. A new replacement set is about $70 and I told them I refuse to pay for it and they would need to buy a new set from their own money or their allowance. I did, however search some of the RockBand posts and found this to be common problem. I mean, come on, they are drums and they are meant to be banged right?
But, nevertheless it’s their game and their responsibility and therefore, their replacement. I must say, they’re pretty resourceful. They searched for replacement drums online and of course came upon Ebay (I know this because one of them said, “Mom, what’s a bid?”). After explaining the bid process I told them the first thing to do is determine how much money they have combined. They got pretty discouraged when the total contents of their wallets came to $36, half of what they need.
It then prompted them to come up with ideas on how to earn the money. The first thing I said was, “how about do your chores so you can get an allowance?” They didn’t like that idea. Oh well, no chores, no allowance. They then decided they would work at Subway making sandwiches. I told them you need to be 16 to work at a store. To that they replied, “but we’re double digits, why can’t we work in a store?” Then they said, “We’ll sell our old sneakers!” I said, “oh sure, they’ll be lining up around the block to buy your dirty smelly sneakers.” They replied, “we’ll put those fabric softener things in them”.
After they told me I was making their lives very difficult, they decided to sell all of their old books, DVD’s, video games and CD’s. I had to coach them a bit on the pricing, as they suggested charging $20 for a 3 year old used video game, but they are determined to sell a bit every day after they return home from camp.
We’ll see how determined they are because I’m not going to push them at all. If they really want those drums, let’s see how creative they get…it’s a good lesson and I’ll keep you posted on their progress!
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