New Year, New Plan

Every once in awhile I revamp our discipline system.  After reading the Bernstein Bears Forget Their Manners while getting the oil changed today I was inspired.  After lunch a few melt downs I sat the kids down to write our family rules.  This is what we came up with (together!):
1) No hitting/pushing/bitting
2) Do not interrupt
3) Be good listeners (Aunt Amber would add "first time listener," Daddy would add "long time listener, first time caller!")
4) No unnecessary noise
5) No shouting
6) No name calling
7) No jumping on furniture (Grant added this one and elaborated on it several times..."no jumping on the chairs, stairs, bodies, potty, pooppy, Jack, etc..." He was quite entertained by himself :)
8) Sharing/Respect
9) No nose picking
10) No tattle-tellilng
11) Say "please" and "thank you"

As you can guess some of these were customized  specifically for one child or the other.  Mommy also had a really bad headache the other day and realized how much noise was being made.  Sometimes Elizabeth just bangs on things to make noise and then cackles (really loud!) about it!

I gave them each a tupperware with 10 jingle bells in it.  It was 3:00 pm.  The deal was each time you broke a rule you had a bell taken away.  For every two bells you had to sit in time out (built in warning system - pretty smart huh?!).  If you ran out of bells it was time to put pi's on and go to bed!  Who ever has the most bells at bedtime gets a sticker on a chart.  I have no idea why sticker charts motivate my kids, but they seem to work.  And they enjoy competing so why not compete for good manners.

It is now 6:49 and the score is:
Grant - empty tupperware, one broken rule away from bed
Elizabeth - 3 bells, wondering if she won yet

The way they acted is what is funny though.  When we sat down to have the big pow-wow I asked them "What do you think our family rules should be? What do mommy and daddy expect of you?" Grant immediately said "Be good!!"Ok, so we know the fundamentals...let's execute on them!

Grant's first offense was calling Elizabeth a whiner.  Minus one bell.  Next he decided to jump on the bed.  Really?! Wasn't that the rule he brought to the table? To time out he went.  The next few minutes (yes minutes) go pretty smooth.  We do a craft, but then I get a phone call.  Minus one for EB for interrupting.  Grant decides to say "I don't like you" to his sister, plus a few other missteps.  So back to time he goes.  This time of course he has to go potty.  I tell him to go potty and then get in his chair.  He goes potty and comes back with no underwear.  I decide to just have him sit in time out anyway.  As he is facing the wall and I am recounting his behavior he starts humming and playing with himself.  Such a boy! As we progress through the day Grant continues to have bells taken away. Elizabeth is losing them too, but of course she crying and really hurt when she loses a bell.  Grant could care less.  At one point I hear whisper to herself "don't say a peep, don't say a peep" in effort to stop tattling.  The other night Grant wouldn't stay in bed so Brandon took one of his Lego sets away.  Guess who got upset about it? Elizabeth!  The next morning she was still secretly asking me if we were going to give the Lego set away.  Grant didn't even remember what got taken away or why!  Ugh! Why can't the same strategy work for both of them? Instead they all work for Elizabeth and we still search for the thing that gets Grant's attention.

Bedtime bell score:
Grant - in bed, desperately trying to fall asleep
Elizabeth -  2 bells (yes she got a sticker but almost made it a losing tie because she encouraged her brother to spit in my hair!!!) "oh and mom could you make it a purple sticker please?" Sure honey, sure :)

Apparently we will have to start tomorrow with a much larger bell count or we will all be in bed by noon!!