Cleaner bedrooms

We had a problem. Messy bedrooms. It was constant, it was overwhelming. We seemed to be constantly telling the kids to "clean up their rooms". I struggled with this a tiny bit b/c I could remember being a kid and hating to clean my room. I felt like, "hey, it's my room. If you don't like it, just close the door and don't look at it." I seem to be more relaxed with Trey and Allie b/c they are teenagers. As long as they clean it once a week, they are busier and have more stressful lives than the little kids, and I just felt like cutting them some slack. Maybe because I felt like I was cut some slack when I was a teenager and had a messy room. And I'm not in their rooms as often so it doesn't bother me as bad. ANYWAY.......We were tired of the nagging and listening to their usual response of "I don't want to right now" that we got from most of the kids. So we told them we were going to start grading the rooms each morning and night. You could get a 1-10. At the end of the week, if you had the most points you got a reward. This cut down our nagging during the week and put the ball in their court. We have done it for 3 weeks now and it has worked well with our kids. Sydney won the first week, Connor and Tanner the 2nd week and Sydney won the 3rd week. So far Trey has come in last every week. Hmm....maybe it has something to do with our reward, which is whoever wins gets to decide on the dinner menu for Sunday. If they want they can go to the store with me on Saturday and get a free cookie too.

Sydney's 1st menu: Angel hair pasta (no sauce), green beans and corn bread.

Tanner and Connor's menu: chicken stirfry with NO vegetables and rice

Sydney's menu for tomorrow: homemade pizza, pinnapple and peas with butter.

Their rooms are far from perfect, but at least they are a lot happier to clean and do it because they want to. We'll see how long it lasts......