I am so very blessed!
I've just listened to Call of the Day - Talia's daughters have started saying "No" to everything. Your advice to Talia gave me a flash back to my recent visit with my daughter and her family of five kids in another state. On this visit, I was immediately impressed with the atmosphere in her home-it runs like a fine-tuned clock. Ultimately I noticed five poster boards of different colors. Each poster board has columns for each day of the week, and tiny tags hanging on very small hooks which identify specific responsibilities. As any day progresses, a child removes tags, and at bedtime, submits accumulated tags to his/her mother who awards that child with a ticket, or tickets which are ultimately redeemed for privileges, such as time playing video games, etc.
Responsibilities include routine things like brushing teeth, bathing, making bed, doing homework, bedtime prayer time with a parent, etc. Others, for the older children, include helping prepare meals, after-meal cleanup, adding to/taking from dishwasher, and reading to the five-year-old who, by the way, does a lot of reading on her own.
Sometimes, their accumulated tickets merit a lottery drawing for bonus tickets.
There's no whining, no cheating, no lying. The kids have learned that such behavior results in severe consequences such as loss of accumulated points (tickets).
Do the children resent their mother? Quite the contrary. They adore and respect her.
I am sometimes moved to tears of delight when I think about my daughter's family.
