Mom's Shop and House Rules

PREFACE:

I must preface this post by warning you all that the pictures you will see are extremely cluttered and may be harmful to the eyes.

We live in a small house with 6 people.

The dining room is our biggest room, so it gets used as a scrapbooking/family center/ dining area.

The table is hideous I know.

I have big plans during hunting season for that guy along with his chair harem.

Anyhow,

A long while ago someone asked me to share our House Rules.

I am finally getting around to it!

Here they are:

House Rules

1. Love the Lord your God!

Duet. 6:5

2. Honor your Father and Mother

Eph 6:1-3

3. Be Kind

Eph.4:32

4. Respect Yourself and others

1st Peter 2:17

5. Respect our home and property

1st Tim. 6:20

6. Be safe

Eph. 5:15

7. Tell the Truth

Prov. 12:22

8. Treat others how you want to be treated

Matt. 7:12

9. Clean up after yourself and help around house

1st Tim. 6:20

10. Always do your best

2 Cor. 13:11

 

 

Our House Rules binder is the green one, and this is where I keep many of our activity/ devotions books as well.

 

These are hanging up in our house to be referenced,

but I must say summer came and with it a total slacking on all things such as this.

I am going to start doing a review every Friday night.

This is generally our family movie night, but now that the kids are getting bigger it is going to become just Family Night.

We'll play games, do a Homebuilder's Study, go over rules,

and then watch our movie.

 

 

 

 

Another thing I wanted to share is Mom's Shop.

I'm the kind of mom that starts things and then lets them go very quickly.

I've had all sorts of fancy ideas over the years, but one thing that has been successful in our family is this rewards system.

 

 

The kids each have a bucket with their name on it  including mom.

can you see those 4 galvanized bins squeezed in there?

Ya, that's our ticket buckets.

Ignore the rest of please, I've been meaning to reorganize but it has yet to happen.

 

 

So what we do is this:

 

 

For every 'good deed', the child receives a ticket.

You can purchase a huge roll of tickets at wal-mart for about $4.00 (and have enough left to run a carnival...)

 

I will give them a ticket for a multitude of things, everything from going to bed without arguing or getting back up,  extra chores,  a kind deed, getting ready to go somewhere on time, keeping their rooms clean, etc.

 

They get ONE ticket per deed (on rare occasions a huge job will earn more than one), and they can't ask me for one for by simply doing something nice.

They may remind me to put one in their bucket however , seems how mom isn't actually mentally with it half the time and I forget .  And they can always ask me if there is a job to be done so they can earn one.

 

On Sundays after church and lunch, I open Mom's Shop.

 

These galvanized bins and wire basket here hold the goods:

 

 

 

Each basket has a desiganted 'price'.

The white basket holds 1 ticket items, generally penny-type candy, stickers, etc.

We also have a 3 ticket, 5 ticket and 7 ticket bucket.

Ever so often I'll buy an item that costs 10 or more but that's only happened a few times.

For 3 tickets they can buy a better piece of candy, but I have also included in this bucket 4 slips of paper.

One is good for making the desert of your choice, one is for staying up as late as you want on Friday family night ( I don't worry about this yet since they can only make it till about 10), and then there is one that is good for a date with mom, and one for dad.  The dates cost a lot more than the other goods, but it is nice to have a reason for one on one time with a child!

 

The 5 ticket buckets hold the tiny soda cans ( a real treat in our house since my kids aren't normally allowed soda), ceramics to paint, books, candy bars etc.

 

7 Tickets can usually buy them a movie ( I often buy the $5.00 movies in the walmart bins when I run across good ones), or bigger toy items I've bought on a clearance sale or something.

 

 

The kids are allowed to buy items from Mom's Shop only one day a week, and cannot try to earn all their tickets at the last minute.  So far this has been very successful, and we've done it for about 4 years.

 

 

I hope that someone can adopt one of these ideas for their family.

It often takes a good plan, but then a lot of jostling things around to see what works for your family.

Like I've said I'm the queen of starting charts/ systems and then forgetting to implement them.

So when you find one that works for you stick with it!

 

 

 

God Bless,

Mandy

 

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