** * Our Life with 13 Kids * **: Not Allowed

Thursday, May 16, 2024

Not Allowed

It's been a good productive and instructive day. It started off great cause I woke up on my own at 5:15, yay! Maybe my internal clock is finally back in sync after the trip to Texas? I stretched for 45 minutes as I read my scriptures. Then bouldering by myself after taking skyline carpool - did 20, one of which was a really hard orange V2. I should take a picture of the route for myself to remember. Then back home for a day of trying to clean up messes and thinking how to be a better homemaker. I had a little bit of free time and during that I finally did some high school reunion stuff that I've been procrastinating- I set up paypal to the new bank account I made for the reunion. After the kids got home from school they went off to play and I got a text from a neighbor that Daniel has been gifting her daughter Millie some jewelry. She sent a pic and it's jewelry that belongs to Abi Lily and Sophi, so yeah, gotta keep an eye on that kid. I took O to soccer practice at 5:30, and as I was dropping him off I noticed his team wasn't there and looked at my texts to see that practice was at 6. There was another kid there who got it wrong like us, so O and him just played. But planning the rest of the evening - now I would need to be there at 7 to get him not 6:30... hmmm - with that extra 30 minutes, I decided to drive up the canyon and I did 3 quick loops on techy. I biked down the stairs there by Lisa Falls parking lot too (I did not bike UP them!) I didn't make it up the hill or hit everything on techy but it was good practice. 2.3 miles, 30 minutes. Then home for dinner, kids, finishing up tasks as we are almost at the end of the school year.

A few things came into alignment tonight regarding housekeeping, chores and music practice, and parenting. So... first was us starting to implement a bit of Lisa's rule about "not allowing" her children to fight, and applying that to the kids and their chores and music practice. I have been allowing them to go play with friends first, without having done their tasks, so I'm trying to get some resolve to "NOT ALLOW" them to blow things off anymore. They have time, they can do it, we need them to do it, they've been having a pretty weak showing of completing their tasks. Last week I made a list of 10 things they have to do, we've since added more and combined some (combined socks & shoes and backpack all into one) so tasks are:

Socks, Shoes & Backpack
Chore Area
Kitchen Area
Music Practice
Bedroom Clean
Made Bed
Clothes Away
Read
Homework
Check Gradebook/show their folder
Help Peter do a Task
Personal Scripture Study

And so far over this past week, either I haven't recorded their scores, OR they've done lousy on the days I did record (Mon Tues and Wed of this week)

So this has got to change, but it's been this way just cause I've allowed it!! I need to NOT allow it.

Thing #2 - Tonight Daniel did not want to finish practicing music with Corey, cause he was trying to learn these three notes that were really challenging and he wanted to quit. Corey told him he could do it and to not quit, but D started to quit. "If you quit, we're not having date night tomorrow and we're going to stay home and practice!" and Corey said he thought that threat would give Daniel pause, but D didn't care and he slunk away and hid beneath a wagon in the kitchen (a wagon Natalie is using for her Nevada float for the State Parade tomorrow...) So looks like we're not going out tomorrow night.

Thing #3 - So after Daily Dose of Internet and Scriptures and prayer tonight, after we were done reviewing the kids scores and also giving them a little lecture about how they can and need to do better, After that Lily offers her opinion to Corey about how lectures don't work, cause she knows what she needs to do, but when he lectures her she just doesn't feel like doing anything at all. I wasn't really paying attention but all of a sudden Corey seemed fed up and I heard him say to Lily "Allright, give me your phone..." I was like "What were you guys talking about? What just happened?" Lily was a little surprised too. Corey took Lily's and Sophi's phones and they don't get them tomorrow cause they didn't practice, Abi did so she keeps her phone. Pretty weak performance overall by all this past week by the kids and by us as parents for not holding them to their responsibilities. So yeah, that feedback from Lily that our words as parent's are cheap was helpful to hear I guess. Summary of what we've learned is

We need to NOT ALLOW the kids to blow off chores anymore.
Threats don't work but if we make them, we need to follow through, and
Lectures don't work. We just need set consequences.

We also talked about how kids should be able to get all greens - doing 10 tasks, and Corey and Hyrum said they should all get all 12 done, no exceptions. So there's a new color level now, BLUE. Kids have to get all 12 chores done - 100%! We want BLUE RIBBON performances. NODP cannot play until they are done with all 12 tasks, and we're allowing a little more freedom timewise for the teen girls, but if they don't get their 12, ALS lose their phones. I gotta follow through. We're 25 years into this and it's always a challenge to keep learning what works in our house. Speaking of our "House"... Ethan sent out a text earlier this week letting us know that the follow up to "The House" is ready for it's debut! A red carpet even once again is set up for this Sunday.

That will be fun. In preparation for it, Ethan has been pulling some almost all nighters and Bella might be feeling what it's like having a husband who is in medical school? He was texting me tonight a few times about getting him everyone's signature - black sharpie on white paper. More instructions: First and middle name. Scratch that - I need first middle and last. All written out in a straight line, not two lines. That was hard for Peter with his middle name of Benjamin...