Posts Tagged ‘anya’
Allowance Update
Oct
Our revised allowance system has been going for about six weeks or so. It’s definitely better than it ever was before, but it’s also been much harder than I expected. I think I’ve discovered the major flaw in our system:
Me.
Kind of depressing, really. I get frustrated or lazy or busy or decide I don’t want to do chores because it’s a lot of work to keep on top of things. I’m simply awful at monitoring the “family contributions.” In fact, after two or three weeks, the contribution of “Be nice and be kind” was completely dropped. I don’t even pretend about that one anymore. Nate was right.
Did you hear me, Nate? I said, “You were right!” And I did it publicly!
So the family contribution portion of our allowance system is still in flux. Last week I tried “Share love” in an effort to encourage the kids to serve others. Since I never managed to follow-up, it was an utter failure. But, I’m going to try again this week. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…
Charting chores everyday has been problematic, mostly because I hate tracking on charts. (Yes, it is all about me–remember, I’m the problem.) For instance, the chore week starts on Saturdays, and I often do not have the chart printed off until Monday afternoon or so. Not exactly effective. This is also part of why I’m super bad at tracking the family contributions.
However, I’ve realized that homework time is the best time to work through all the charting we have to do: homework, reading, chores. This is kind of hard for me, because I like to get my housework out of the way in the morning. I like to get all the blah stuff done, so I have the whole day to do the yay stuff. But, I’m letting that go a little bit. Dylan and Anya really do need to learn about chores, and it just isn’t happening in the morning.
My kids have not been excited to add 20 minutes to their after school responsibilities. They are used to zipping through homework as fast as humanly possible and then dashing off to play with friends. It’s been kind of challenging to slow them down. Oddly, the way to slow them down has been to add yet another thing to the afternoon. We’ve started having afternoon snacks. We do a little homework, do a little chores, have a little snack, do a little reading, finish up any loose ends for chores or homework and then dash out the door to play. The snack in the middle breaks up the boring, hard stuff and makes the afternoon more fun.
Of course, I have to be with it enough to have some kind of snack in the house. Harder than you think.
Despite the challenges, I am starting to realize the advantages. For instance, I loathe taking my kids to the book fair to buy books that they never read more than once. But, Dylan was adamant that the world would end if he did not own Star Wars: The New Padawan. In the midst of this very dramatic conversation, it dawned on me: “This is precisely the kind of thing his allowance was intended for.” I think you could have seen the light bulb over my head. Our problem was promptly solved, because he had $3.99 to buy said book. Dylan actually read his new book at least once a day for the last week. The realization that allowance money buys all the stuff that they want, but I think is wasteful, has been liberating and adds greatly to our success. Also, we have less of that whining drama.
The final advantage to the system is that, despite my difficulties with follow-up, chores are being accomplished much more regularly, and the kids are starting to take the initiative do chores. That in itself is an amazing thing.
Here’s to finding my groove soon. I think it’s worth sticking this one out. How’s it working for you?
Puzzles
Oct
We just spent the evening at Grandma’s house putting together one of my favorite puzzles from my own childhood. My family had several of the 300-piece 2 by 3 foot sized Disney movie poster puzzles. We did the Jungle Book one on the kitchen table. It was fun to work together as a family on a project, visit with grandparents, hear about our great-grandparents, and share brownies when our work was done. It’s interesting to see how the two kids each participate in this kind of a project.
Anya is still too young for this big of a puzzle, so she helped me make brownies while everyone else started out. Once we got the brownies in the oven, Anya hovered around the table “helping” each of us in turn. She found pieces that seemed to match what we were working on. If we told her two pieces fit together, she would fiddle when them until she figured out how they fit. She lasted about 20 or 30 minutes this way, and then grandma brought out the crayons and markers and coloring books for her.
Dylan is much more persistent. He worked on the puzzle with us the entire time, but he definitely was getting bored at the end. The promise of a brownie kept him with it though. He was good at picking out all the pieces that went with Baloo and the bananas. He would stay with a piece, turning it and matching up colors until he found a place it fit. He understands the concepts of putting the edge pieces together first and using the picture on the box as a guide for the whole puzzle. And, using his dad’s iPhone, here’s his proud picture of our Sunday night project.
This is the sort of night that provides all kinds of educational benefits but no one even noticed. Lots of laughing, talking, and lovely brownies. A night well spent!
Tags: anya, dylan, fine motor skills, math, puzzles, social skills
Blood-sucking Beavers
Sep
My children come up with the most astonishing array of bedtime excuses. I try to take this as an indication of my success in fostering their creativity. But, no one is fooled. We all know it’s really an indication of my colossal failure in the bedtime obedience area.
A few nights ago, we put our children to bed, tucked them in, had a few bathroom visits, kindly left a light on for them, and sternly insisted that they go to bed NOW! I doubt it was five minutes later that I heard panicked feet pounding on the wood floors toward the patio, where we were visiting with my parents. Anya burst out the door yelling, “Mommy, mommy, mommy!” We rolled our eyes and acknowledged her…barely.
“Mommy! I hear a sound like this.” She screwed up her face and made sound that was a cross between a sucking and a kissing noise. “It’s a blood-sucking beaver, and it’s going to get me!” she bellowed. I almost laughed…just a little snort escaped. But, I manged to pull out my angry eyes and march her back to bed.
No, I have not the faintest idea where she heard about blood-sucking beavers. Truth be told, it was my first encounter, too.
So what’s your kids’ best anti-bedtime excuse?
Tags: anya, bedtime, creativity
I Hear You, Sister
Sep
Anya spends long hours most days playing with her babies and carefully tending to their various needs. She’s a great mom! When I took Anya to kindergarten this morning, she responsibly buckled her baby into Dylan’s booster seat “because it’s safer for her that way.” This happens most mornings. The baby doll stays there, safely seatbelted, until I pick Anya up three hours later.
The baby is a talking doll that helpfully informs the world that she’s hungry or wants a story or a needs a diaper change or wants to play. Almost always I leave the doll turned off, because I hate listening to it. I have real children to whine at me, thank you! But the doll was on this afternoon, and we had to listen to it on the way home from kindergarten. After a few minutes, Anya got all huffy and exasperated: “Mom, my baby is giving me a headache! I really need a break from my baby. Let’s get her a babysitter.” I laughed quietly so as not to offend.
She’s just lucky her baby has an off switch. Mine don’t.
It’s ok…I like it that way.
Tags: anya, pretend play
What’s Your Family Contribution?
Sep
With the beginning of new school year and a perceptible increase in the chorus of “I want” that I get to listen to each day, I have begun reconsidering the allowance system in use at our house. The current one is, “We-Tried-Last-Year-But-They-Didn’t-Understand-So-We-All-Forgot-About-It-Because-It-Was-Easier.” Maybe it’s time to get back up on that horse. Also, the thought of a free iPhone, courtesy of out friends of at Capital One and Parent Bloggers, has got me thinking overtime!
My biggest challenge with allowances is what the kids should get paid for and what they should just do because they have the rare privilege of being part of our family. I looked over the Tessy and Tab Preschool Money Manger Kit that was reviewed recently at Parent Hacks. (I submitted a hack that they used in conjunction with the review, if you were curious). In any case, one thing I liked about their system was that, in order to have an opportunity to earn money, there were three things kids had to do as their “family contribution” each day. Particularly, I liked that one was “Be kind and behave.” I think that’s a completely fair expectation.
The problem is that my husband disagrees (strongly I might add) about connecting that expectation with an allowance. He even suggested that some days of the month (gasp!) I might be a bit grumpier than others and more prone to deciding the kids didn’t cut it that day. I think the word he used was “arbitrary.” Just possibly, there could come a day that they did all their “work,” and mom decides it doesn’t matter because there wasn’t enough “Be kind and behave.” Obviously, this would never happen to me. Obviously…
So there is a (teensy) possibility that I should consider his reservations and figure out another more unified way for us to handle this. But, I’m kind of stumped. I want the kids to learn that we all contribute to family life. Particularly, I need to teach that our biggest contribution is our choice to treat each other with love and to follow the family rules. So, if we fail in that what should the consequence be? Should our family contribution NOT be connected with an allowance at all? What chores or jobs or behaviors are simply expectations and which ones can be associated with your allowance job chart?
Ponder, ponder, ponder.
First, it occurs to me that my kids are still young, so concrete, specific, and achievable expectations are most likely to be successful. In that case my husband it right: “Be nice and behave” is probably too nebulous for them to really know when they are successful. After all, all of us apparently have off days when we’re trying hard, doing our best, and still coming off as grumpy. Doesn’t that count for something?
Then, there are some other things that I just expect my kids to do without getting paid. Even though Tessy and Tab think it’s ok, I’m not ok with paying my kids to dress and brush teeth. Ewww…no choices there…we just do it. I also think that we can expect everyone to put away their laundry. I don’t tell Dylan and Anya how to put away the clothes in the drawers, so pretty much it’s all just stuffed in. But, I do expect at least that much, and I’m not going to start paying for that. Maybe I’d pay for neatness. Dunno…have to think about that.
So, I’m thinking that “Be nice and behave” is going to be a separate family expectation with a separate set of incentives and consequences. The current family contributions and earning opportunities are probably going to be along these lines:
Contributions:
- Dress, bathe, brush teeth
- Pray and read scriptures personally and with the family
- Complete homework
Daily Earning Opportunities:
- Clean bedroom (Bed made, toys put away, desk cleared, laundry put away)
- Swish and Swipe a bathroom
- Help Mom with Daily Zone Cleaning
- Clean up dinner
I’m also considering paying them for each additional 20 minutes they read beyond what is required for their homework. Not sure on that one yet. And, there may be some special weekend opportunities that go along with yard work.
So comments? suggestions? magic fairy dust to make this work? How does your family balance the idea of a family contribution against an allowance or jobs for pay chart?
