I resolve to....

I was thinking about New Years and the whole resolution thing - and I decided to resolve to make NO RESOLUTIONS until February. I figured I should give myself a whole month to make sure I am physically back up to snuff and not trying to go full speed ahead before my body is ready...

Sounds good EH? - I thought so too, until yesterday, when my ever-goal setting husband was busy working on some of his (and some family) resolutions; which then pulled me into the process since I'm the one that is home during the day and will be the main person implementing the goals and plans we set up.

We determined that we aren't really happy with where our son (age 7) is as far as work ethic, money sense, responsibility, etc. The problem with not being happy with where he is, is that WE are the ones who got him to where he is... (more especially ME - I am the one who got him to where he is, which is that he "hates" to work, cleaning his room is always "too hard," he refuses to do any type of work unless a parent is working along side of him (even then this usually equates to the parent doing 90% of the work), he thinks he should get money for any trifle thing he DOES do, every time I turn around he has created another huge mess and left it for me to clean up, he has little to no sense when it come to money matters, etc...)

So - what are we going to try?

1) Give the kids a fixed allowance. This money is not tied to doing chores, but they will now be personally responsible for more financial things. For example, anytime they want a toy or treat at the store - THEIR money, buying presents for friends birthday parties - THEIR money. (Aaron announced, "I'm never going to birthday parties again, I don't want to spend MY money") Anytime the kids don't want to go with me to the store or to run errands, they will have to pay for a babysitter with THEIR money. If they want to get out of doing on of their household chores, they can offer to pay someone else to do it, or pay for an adult to help. (Yesterday Aaron spent his entire allowance ($5) to pay Katrina to clean his room for him because it was "too hard" for him) (Katrina in turn paid me $2 to help her get it done, but she still got a pretty good deal.)

2) TV tickets. We choose to not pay for cable or satellite, and we don't get any tv reception without it, but we do have a tv that we use to watch movies. I admit that during the past year I have let watching get out of control. (I've been just too tired to deal with kids and the boob-tube babysitter has been too easy to refuse) Anyway, now each child has tv tickets that they can turn in to watch tv or play on the computer. They get a max of 2 hours per day (which is still probably to much) and any tickets left unused at the end of the week can be turned in for cash.

3) Each child will still have a few chores that are their responsibility each day to contribute to the good of the family.

That's about it as far as things we decided and implemented yesterday. We'll have to see how things work as we go along, and make adjustments as needed. As for my OWN personal resolutions... I RESOLVE TO MAKE NO (official) RESOLUTIONS UNTIL FEBRUARY!!!

So there!