Wow!

Okay, so... I'm a little shocked by how well this Responsibilities Before Privileges concept is working for us. It was hard for the first 1.5 weeks, especially for Eli. I wrote a whole blog post about it! Lila caught on pretty quickly and hasn't given us any trouble since those first few days of boundary-testing.

Well, they've both been blowing me away for the past week! On school days, Lila only has one additional chore - vacuuming under the dining room table. She comes in and does it right away, without even being asked! And it's made a big difference on homeschool days too. She is expected to do two hours of school work in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. She decided pretty quickly that she'd rather earn her privileges than exert her control over school.

Eli has slowly transitioned from a total strike against all responsibilities to asking to do them! Seriously! He decided he wanted his game time today and I reminded him that the way to earn that privilege was by doing all morning and afternoon responsibilities. He took care of his morning business and watched morning video. After rest time, he asked to go ahead and do all of them so that he could play his game! Instead of waiting until the last minute, he was totally done by 1:45.

I don't expect to ever have this kind of parenting success again, so I'm kind of rolling around in it right now! Praise God for my discontent, inspiration, and calm follow-through!

And speaking of game tame, Lila uttered the following phrase while playing Little Big Planet this afternoon: "Okay, move along, feces!"