Some things we're trying...

With our easy summer schedule (and the heat, which--aside from going to the pool nearly every day--generally leaves us finding things to do indoors, since I'm a heat wimp), I think we've all started getting on each other's nerves a little. In an effort to keep the peace, we've been trying a few things this summer:

Experiment #1

I put this jar and all these little pom poms on a tray on our coffee table, and told them that every time we did something nice for someone in our family, or even someone outside of our family, we could put a "warm fuzzy" in the jar. We talked about how serving makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside, and how it helps our family grow closer together and closer to God. I specified that being obedient to the rules of the house, while admirable and desirable, did not earn them a warm fuzzy. They had to do something above and beyond.

For a while, they were constantly looking for ways to earn a warm fuzzy and they did really well at being self-motivated. But after a week or two, they started to lose interest and I had to be much more active in looking for things they were doing that deserved a warm fuzzy. I found that if I watched, they were helping and serving all the time! What a great opportunity for me to practice positive praise and for me to get better at serving as well.

Overall, a successful experiment. And now that we've filled our jar, we're going to celebrate by spending a day at a nearby lake, swimming, playing in the sand, and picnicking. Fun fun!




Experiment #2

To help us all to remember to use kind words AND voices when we speak to each other, I put five candies in each of our little cups every morning. I told the kids that they could eat all five of their candies during our nightly scripture reading if they used sweet words and voices all day long. But, if they yelled, or whined, or said something not sweet, they had to give one of their candies to the person they yelled, whined, or weren't sweet to. The first several days, we were all giving away lots of candies. And one day, Anthon ended up with 11, which, I decided at the end of the day, was more of a testament to what a pill he was, than to the rest of us losing our cool. But, besides that, it's gone really well. And in the last day or so, I've really noticed that hardly any of us are giving our candies away! We're learning to be sweet, even when frustrated!

Ah, sweet success.

hee hee...I couldn't resist the pun:)