Experiment

My kids don’t get along very well. It’s not easy to admit, because I know that part of the problem (a big part probably) is my fault. But, that doesn’t mean I can just ignore it and hope it goes away. So, today I’m conducting an experiment with them.

Let me set the scene: My hubby, Steve, is out of town for the day at a seminar for his business; the kids were supposed to be in school today as a make up day, but I let them stay home. (Confession: I let them stay home because I didn’t want to get up early today. Selfish, I know) So, I automatically earned points with them for letting them play hooky and they really had no choice but to cooperate. There are several chores that need to be done at the house – dishes, laundry, general cleaning and straightening, you get the idea. I usually split them up for chores because all they do is fight when they are working on the same task – not today. Today, they will spend their time doing chores together. There are 2 requirements: they have to work together without bickering & they have to display a good attitude with me. For every task they complete without an argument, they get points. If one starts to pull an attitude or tries to start an argument with the other, they can lose points. If they other one doesn’t take the bait and continues to use nice words, they get bonus points. Here’s the killer: if one of them baits the other into a fight (and they each know how to push each others buttons with the hope of the other lashing out & getting in trouble) and then they both go back to 0 points. So, it really won’t serve either of them to try to get the other in trouble. I actually have a tally sheet next to me as I write this so I can keep up with the scores. (After 2 tasks, Stephen has 12 points, Emma has 8 – Emma’s lost points for the way she’s speaking to Stephen & Stephen got bonus points for not taking the bait.) At the end of the day, I will total their points and they will get a reward based on their COMBINED points. That way it’s not a competition between them and being nice to each other benefits them both.

Why are we doing this today? Because they got into a huge fight last night before bedtime. Stephen announced that Emma was ruining his life and she never gets in trouble when she baits him. I disagreed with both of his statements. However, if that’s his view of things, I needed to help him see that wasn’t the situation. (Disclaimer: he’s 13 and has “the whole world is out to get me” complex going on which makes this whole deal even more “fun”!) I could talk to him until I was blue in the face (again) about how that wasn’t true, but I thought showing him would be better.

I’ll blog about the results either tonight or tomorrow – hopefully with lots of these…