Buckling Down!

For a while now I've been feeling very frustrated because my kids don't listen, and don't clean up after themselves. I love them so much, and they are so sweet, but they were definitely lacking in the respect department! Last week pushed me over the edge! They hadn't cleaned their toy room in about 6 days, and toys were all over the house, and when I'd tell them to clean they'd say no and walk away! Well, Mommy's stopping that RIGHT NOW! I sent them up to their toy room and told them they could have dinner after it was clean, this started around 4 p.m. Dinner was ready at 5 and they still hadn't picked up a single toy! So I told them I was going to eat, and they could have their dinner when it was clean. At 8, their bedtime, the room still looked like this....

So, I put them to bed without dinner! Such a hard thing to do by the way! I felt bad all night, and then in the morning told them they could have breakfast after it was clean. I should mention, it's pretty easy to clean the toys, we have a large bucket that most go in, and a shelve that a few go on. They still wouldn't clean. By this point I could tell they were hungry and I'm starting to feel like a bad parent for not feeding them. So, I took Johnny to preschool and while he was gone I did this....

Picked up anything that was on the floor and put it in these black trash bags! Nate watched and cried while I did it, he kept asking why and I told him cause he didn't clean up. He has been super good about cleaning up since his favorite toy was put in a trash bag!
I put the bags away, somewhere secret, and they have to earn their toys back one at a time. I should also mention I fed them a very large lunch after this! But, I decided that day, we had to come up with a new method to motivate them and teach them. So, I found this awesome idea online, and it came with free customizable templates! It's a rewards system with tickets. Each kid had their own chart and when they complete a task they earn however many tickets go along with the task! For example: when they get dressed, they get one ticket, when they do their chore for the day, they earn 4 tickets, etc. There are also a list of other things they can earn tickets for: listening the first time, being good at the store, playing nicely with each other, etc. So, lots of opportunities to earn tickets. Then they get tickets taken away for things as well: talking back, hitting, yelling, etc. At the end of the week, they can choose to save their tickets or spend some. Each reward costs a certain amount of tickets: ice cream cone is 20, but a new toy is 200? I think...so they learn about money management as well!

Here are our charts!

Johnny's chart!

Rewards chart, some of the bigger numbers have been altered since our kids are younger and may have a really hard time earning that many tickets.

Johnny and Nate each have their own envelope where they keep the tickets they've earned, at the end of the week we count them all up and they get to decide to save them or spend them.

These are their tickets, also free to download! So far this has been working really well, they love getting an immediate reward for doing something, and they get excited seeing how many they've earned. Johnny is saving his right now for a kite he saw at the store, we figure it will take him about 3 1/2 weeks. And Nate doesn't understand the saving and spending so much so we kind of help him by making suggestions of things we know he likes. They each earned enough just last week (with us altering the numbers a little) to pick out something at the store. We wanted them to see last week that their hard work paid off, so they'll keep it up.

Johnny really wanted a picture taken and put on here, lol, so that's why the random pic is here.

"Flowers" they keep bringing me while I write this!

Nate had to have a picture taken too.

Anyways, this is what they earned last week. Nate picked out a Scooby Doo movie, and Johnny wanted a toy shopping cart with food. We have a dollar limit on the toys they can buy, so we don't go broke, and we figure they can only earn enough tickets for a new toy once or twice a month. So, I'm really excited about this, I feel like Johnny is trying to listen so much harder now, and I feel like the expectations and consequences are pretty clear with pictures and everything! This way there's no confusion and he knows what's going to happen if he acts up. Also, they can trade in tickets to earn back their toys that I took last week!