Not Your Usual Chore

Occasionally, we have to mix up our reward system with the boys; we change the reward, we change the chores or behaviors to be rewarded, that sort of thing.  Doing one system for too long looses its effectiveness for us.  It gets old and ignored and I, more than the rest of them, loose interest and momentum.  

A good change is needed every once in a while.  

I just discovered a new system that I love, and have spent part of my afternoon deciding what behaviors and chores and actions I want to put on them this time around.  I had my top 5 or 6 picked out before I asked Matt for his input.  He thought about it for a second or two and said, "Exercise for sure!"  Really?  You think we need to reward them for exercising?  Their whole day is exercising of some sort!  They never sit still!  They run to the bathroom, they jump on the couch cushions!  The do flips onto their giant beanbag chair and try to roll it over each other before jumping on top!  They sit on and race their big Tonkas up and down the hallways, narrowly escaping the certain injury that would result if they were a couple inches off and rolled right down the stairs!  They tromp in the snow, choosing the "high snow" over the sidewalks on the way to school.  

When I reminded Matt of this, he rolled his eyes and said, "No, real exercise!  Not playing!"  So, in an attempt to actually take his opinions seriously, I have added "exercise" as a category to be rewarded in my kids.  Hey, who says behavior charts can't have some fun too?  It's time to resurrect The Exercise Game, I think!

They have already earned their stars for exercise today, by the way.  I took them out to play in the softly falling snow and made them pull each other up and down the soccer field in the sled.  They had a fabulous time pulling and dumping each other, crashing into things and getting tangled in the rope.  Ben reminded me that this just had to be exercise because he was so sweaty and because it is just like Daddy when he pulls them around on his weight sled!  Yes, Matt has a weight sled that he pulls children around on the soccer field, getting plenty of evil eyes from mothers and nannies.  I'm not sure what they take exception to more, the fact that he is putting children on his sled and pulling them quite fast, or the fact that he is wearing spandex from head to toe...