Why We Have (Almost) No More Toys

"Christopher, if you don't pick up your toys I'm going to ...'insert horrible consequence here'..."

We have the same battle at our house numerous times a day. "BOYS PICK UP YOUR TOYS" & soon follow the instant tears & cries of frustration from the kids. Positive reinforcement works with a lot of things, but nothing is quite like the battle of who cleans up the toys. I have seen all sorts of creative ways to get children to pick up their toys, most of which, I have tried & most of which have never worked for us. Finally two boys, hundreds of toys, & almost 5 years later I have come to the conclusion:

I care more about their toys than my kids do. 

Seriously, it's true. I bet if you really dig deep & think about it, it might be true for you too. I've really been trying to get mine & my family's priorities straight from everything to finances, the home & even the time we spend. That's when it occurred to me. We are spending way too much time & energy on toys & not enough on things that really matter. Pieces of plastic & wood. Things that are just that...things.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal --Corinthians 4:18

What we have doesn't really matter, however, where we choose to spend our time does. I couldn't shake the feeling that I really wanted my kids to thoroughly know this.  Not to mention my kids are infamous for what I like to call the 'Dump & Run' which consists of them dumping out a bucket, or sometimes even an entire toy box full of toys & running off to go do something else giggling along the way.

So thinking about the above bible verse I decided that toys were no longer going to be the center of our household, our time, or our efforts. We got rid of EVERYTHING except for a set of blocks, a car track, their play kitchen & about 5 other small toys. This was a major breakthrough for us considering to start with, there were three fully packed toy boxes, over 20 stuffed animals, small random toys, & puzzle pieces galore. And you want to hear the craziest part? They were happy about it, mommy on the other hand struggled a bit. I just kept thinking "I paid 20 bucks for that!" or "Well, we haven't even had this one for very long." But you know what? I would rather spend time teaching them to give to others than thinking of ways to get them to consistently clean them up. I want them to know we don't need "things" to have fun, or to spend time on. We can instead spend time on each other, & use our imigainations (which are why we kept the few toys we did) to play. Plus there are no more clean up frustrations which means we can spend more time on the books we kept, or the games we like to play, or learning about God together. & how blessed are we that we have enough "stuff" to give to others? Our cup is overflowing & we didn't even realize it. They understood the lesson though. They gave with joy & greafulness. No tears or screaming, quite the contrary from what we're used to at clean up time.

Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. --2 Corinthians 9:7

Thank God for my childrens' giving heart.

Responsible Kids

Okay so it's been a while. To make it up to you guys, I decided to post a pretty good one (or at least I'd like to think so). I'm not sure if you guys have ever heard of the Accountable Kids program, but I thought it was an absolutely amazing idea after I researched it. In short terms, your kids have certain chores each day that they earn "tickets" for in which they then cash in for things like TV time, or special activities or things of the like. If you want more detailed information I suggest you check out the link, you may have to watch their video a few times to get all of it because it's pretty complex. Anyway, it inspired me to make my own version of it. 1. Because I could dumb it down a bit & 2. Because I don't like spending money. It took a bit of time, but it was SO worth it! My 3 year old absolutely loves this program, & honestly I do too. Here's what ours looks like.

How Does it Work?

Now our system is a little bit different & a little more simple. Here's a breakdown. The above is Christopher's daily chart. The green squares are things he's expected to do on a daily basis, the yellow squares are his WEEKLY rewards, & the red squares are things that aren't acceptable in our home. The great thing about our version of the system is that chores, rewards, & unacceptable behavior are all readily displayed for the child to see. Also the cards are easy to replace at any time if you want to change the chores, rewards, or bad behaviors. The other component our system has are "bucks" rather than "tickets" that we use to reward good behavior immediately. 

On the left are what are bucks look like, & the right are the replaceable cards for the chart.

Now the bucks are pretty simple. Christopher gets a buck every time he does his chores (the green squares) or displays really good behavior like, listening well, sharing, helping with extra chores etc. Every time he shows behavior we don't like (the red squares) we take a buck away from him. Bucks are used for small things like 30 minutes of TV, listening to his music on the way to school, an extra story at bedtime, & things of that nature. He can save up bucks, or spend them as soon as he gets them, it's up to him. This is great because it shows him that things like TV, & other extras are privileges NOT something we owe him. He needs to be good in order to get good things in return. We've been on the system for over a week now & saw IMMEDIATE results the first day we used it.

Now the last part works with the rest of the system & is simple as well. Each day that we had a good day (determined by how many bucks he earned) we put a pretty stone into his jar before bedtime. If we didn't have a good day, he simply doesn't earn a stone that day. Now these aren't like bucks because they cannot be spent right away, or by his choosing. Once he has earned 5 stones in his jar, they can be spent on a bigger reward (anything pictured in the yellow squares). We chose things like going to the park or the Children's museum, going out for ice cream, or staying the night at grandma's. This is great because it teaches him longer term goals too. Not everything has instant gratification, & sometimes we really have to work for the things we want. 

How Did I Make It?

Our system did take a lot of time to make, but was pretty easy. All of our supplies we already had on hand, or were able to purchase at the dollar store. The chart is made out of baseball card sleeves. I just cut them & taped them together in the back until it was the size I needed it. The cards are just printed pictures I found (& colored) from online since we only had black ink. I just taped them to green, yellow, & red cardstock paper & cut everything to fit the card sleeves.

The bucks are made from foam rectangles I picked up at the dollar store & cut into thirds. Each one has a foam sticker that I placed in the middle of each buck & it made PLENTY. You can use any old jar & stones (or marbles, or beans, or whatever you have around) for the long term reward. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below, or on our Facebook page!

EDIT:
Here are the printables for the pictures I used in my chart. Keep in mind these are specific for my family & you may need to get creative & add some of your own as well. Color them with your kids, or feel free to leave them as is. P.S. coloring is way more fun! Good luck!

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Brightening up Bath Time

So here's something wonderfully simple & cheap that my kids absolutely ADORE. When I'm having a lazy mom day, instead of busting out all of the normal bath time toys that I loathe fishing out from the bottom of the bathtub every time, I toss in a package of glowsticks that I got from the dollar store & turn some of the bathroom lights off. My boys LOVE this! I know these aren't great pictures, but they give you the general idea. I wish the pictures did more justice to how much the glowsticks really make the whole bathtub & water light up though. I like it just as much as the boys do!

Countdown to Christmas!

I have a confession to make. I never knew that you could use just plain glass as dry erase boards (ie: picture frames). I'm fairly certain just about everyone else on the face of the planet may have been aware of this, but I was not one of these people until just recently. With that being said, I thought it might be nice to make a dry erase countdown to Christmas board. Here's how it turned out, & my apologies for the terrible picture quality.

To make this, the only things you will need are scrapbook paper, Christmas stickers (optional), a dry erase marker & eraser, & a picture frame of course. 

The area where you write the number erases so you can put the new number in each day. Everything else like the scrapbook paper, the Christmas stickers, & the words are behind the glass so they don't get erased every time you erase the numbers. Thanks for reading!

A New Take on a Shadow Box

I was so excited when my mom brought over an extra shadow box for me to use! I knew I wanted to fill it with things from the boys, but I wasn't sure what at first. Eventually, I ended up with the obvious...baby shoes, hospital bracelets from the birth, their first baby hat etc.  Considering how excited I was, it was pretty sad how unexciting I just made it look. Not to mention that the boys' room is decorated with cars & trucks. The 'baby' shadow box just didn't seem to make sense their room, much less anywhere else in the house. I left it that way for a few months until I found some inspiration, & a lot of hot wheels & here was the finished product!

I think this is way more fitting! Plus it's something that both boys really love, which is exactly what should be in a shadow box. We filled with HotWheels from when I was little, & of course HotWheels that both of the boys picked out. Plus we all got to work on it together & it only took a few minutes!