The Quarter System

So, for a while, I had been ending everyday feeling like I got the beat down. Also feeling like the slave of the family. Picking up everyone's junk, cleaning up after everyone, etc. Also, there had been lots of fighting between siblings. Constant. Incessant. Unending. I had tried everything: no dessert, no TV, miss out on this activity, miss out on that activity. Unphased. Then I came up with THE QUARTER SYSTEM. It is a very simple system. If you do not pick up after yourself (i.e. candy wrappers on the floor rather than in trash can) you will pay me a quarter for each item I pick up. Quarters are also charged for slowness, hitting, or extreme rudeness (such as pouring milk on your sister in the bed, which happened last night).
At the beginning I quickly found the way my plan might fail. My kid were very close to running out of money to pay me for all of the toys, candy wrappers, dirty dishes, etc. that they had forgotten to be responsible for, BUT, fortunately for my evil plan (BWAHAHAHAHA!) they quickly caught on that they were fast running out of a lovely little thing called MONEY and amazingly began exhibiting much more responsible and thoughtful behavior. I rarely charge a quarter now. Our church is collecting change to help with crisis pregnancies so the money the kids have to pay goes into those bottles right now.
Will THE QUARTER SYSTEM be the next new parenting rage? Probably not. Is it warping my kids in some unforeseen way that will only show up and destroy them when they are 40? I don't know. But it is keeping the sanity people. that is all that matters for now.

Comments

Anonymous said…

pahahahahahaha. That is hilarious. And pouring milk on her in bed? What the world? Hope it holds.
brittany

May 16, 2017 at 12:57 PM

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