Trying to raise humans who aren’t crap is a very exhausting and stressful job.
I don’t want to do everything for them, I just want them to kindly speak to each other instead of scream. I want them to respect my space and others. Don’t we all just need a moment alone? I want them to see the mess they made and clean it up. I want them to ask “how can I help?” I want them to love Jesus and not stir up problems. There are many other things I hope to see come out of them as they live here a few more years but all of this won’t magically happen. I have to be the one that instructs, follows through, repeats and demonstrates, over and over and over. It definitely has refined me and made me see my areas of improvement over the years, especially in the area of obedience to God.
I heard that it takes 67 times to establish a new good habit. Are you like me where I know I’ve repeated things and corrected at least 6700 times and it hasn’t established anything? Frustrating!
We are a family of 7, that requires “Team Thompson” to all be on board and everyone help with the daily, or this mom would be the most unpleasant person to be around and just wrung out. I can only serve so much. Maybe that’s not the most Christian response but I’m still a work in progress.
Last year during Covid and they closed school for the rest of the year my immediate thought was, we can do this! A few weeks in, the follow through from my kids was awful. There was lots of yelling and threatening because I just wanted them to do it when asked and I know they did it at school.
I remembered that the school uses a tickets system for rewards. So, we created our own with the top things I wanted to work on for our family and that would allow me more freedom to be “fun mom” and get my kids thinking about their behavior, how bad behavior does not reap good rewards.
Of course this requires the giver of the tickets, mom, to be super diligent in recognizing those that are following through and immediately reward them to get the ball rolling. This I failed at many times, but we keep starting over. My kids don’t hold things over my head like I do them, yikes, I just admitted that. I guess the story of all of life seems to be, fail, fix the issue and try again or in other words GRACE. Lord, help us all do better the next time we try.
I wanted to share what we came up with for how to earn tickets and what they can spend them on.
You can download the PDF here.
You can modify this to fit what your family values are and where you see your family needing the most direction and help. Now when I am good about following this daily we have had wonderful results. It also gives my kids more choices and independence and teaches them some about handling money. To be honest they don’t have a ton of choices around here because I just don’t, I have control issues, no joke.
I will laminate it, and hang on the side of our fridge as a reminder for all.
You can buy ticket rolls at Dollar General or Wal-mart. You don’t need a ton because they will cash them back in to you.
Bonus, it helps little kids work on basic math skills, teaches them to be responsible with their “money” aka the tickets. It also shows how when you work, you get paid and then you pay others for things that you want or need.
What would you add to this list? I would like to know because we may want to add them to ours. Comment on this post.
I also want to remind you that all of our kids are individual people and we can not control anyone except ourselves. Our kids gross and ugly behavior is not always a representation of how we are trying to raise them. They have their own battles with sin and thoughts that are self-destructive. Sometimes people, even our kids, just need reminded gently about Jesus and all he’s done and how much he loves them and then we just have to let them experience life and figure it out on their own. This will mean, suffering, pain etc. but think through your life and remember where you screwed up and what character God built in you going through that.
Remember this too when you look at other parents and their children, we are not to judge. We don’t know their whole story or what they have going on. Love them anyway and pray for them, maybe remind them they are doing the best they can, we all are.
You are doing the best you can every day and it helps to remember this about our kiddos too, they are doing the best they can with what they know.
No comment yet, add your voice below!