Saturday, October 4, 2008

Selfishness

I have started to deal with a little bit of selfishness with a couple of my kids (mostly the middle 2). I surely want to nip it in the bud.

Lately when I ask them to help with chores around the house, it is followed by some attitude. You would have thought I asked them to do some horrible job, like pump out the septic or something. Yes, they make that awful scrunched up face followed by their comments "I didn't make this mess, sister should have to clean it up." or " Why do I have to dust?" or worse yet "You've got to be kidding, I have 2 chores. I have to clean up the playroom AND bring up the trash cans from the road?" (Nope, now you will have 3 chores for that attitude.) It takes them longer to complain about it than to actually do the chore. If they would just do the chore, they would be done in no time and back to whatever it was that they didn't want to stop in the first place.

So I have decided that I am going to charge them, in chores, for what I do for them. If I take them to a practice or a game, it will cost one chore. If I make their lunch for school it will cost one chore etc.. Hopefully this will open their eyes to all I do for them. I don't ask for much, just some help with reasonable chores.
Am I being too strict? Unreasonable?
Any other ideas out there?

1 comment:

My Little Nest said...

I love it. That's such a great creative correction. You're not punishing, just teaching in a way that will speak to them. Lately, I've been doing something similar...charging them 25 cents each time they leave their dirty dishes on the table (huge problem here). All together they owe me $2.00 so far. Maybe a little bit of "ouch" will also speak to them.