Our Latest Scheme

Last week before the girls went back to school, one of them made a rather obvious observation: "We haven't been following our family rules very well lately." This girl was right. The boredom of rainy summer days and being stuck inside had brought out the worst in us. On this particular day there had been fussing and fighting galore combined with lots of ignoring of mom's instructions...which frequently led to mom... um... shouting... just a little.

Our family rules are called such since we all sat down as a family and generated "rules" that we all thought were important for parents and kids at our house. They are as follows:

• No hurting each other.
• Listen to each other.
• Tell the truth.
• Respect each other's things.
• No shouting, whining, begging or stropping.

George came up with the idea of having individual jars to encourage us all to be more mindful of our rules (and he wasn't even the elementary school teacher in the family). The concept is similar to Momma's old cuss box (y'all know she used to have one), except that we take out a bean every time someone breaks a rule and add a bean anytime someone does something especially kind or helpful. When someone fills his or her jar, they are going to get a really awesome prize to be determined at a later date. So far, it has been met with great enthusiasm. I am personally very happy to say I haven't lost any beans for shouting...or anything else for that matter...yet.

Hope you have a fantastic week and find yourself on your very best behavior...unless the situation calls for an outright hissy fit.