We had a little "incident" the other day where a certain child of mine disregarded repeated warnings about kicking the soccer ball in the house. Something was bound to get broken, and since we don't have any fancy lamps or vases around, it was the window panel of the kid's bedroom door. You see, we have an old Victorian style house and try to keep the integrity of the era by maintaining certain traditional designs...like the glass panel doors. I guess with a son that constantly has a ball in his hand, something like this was bound to happen.
It was one of those situations where I heard the crack and came around the corner to find Timo repeating "it was an accident, Mommy" with alligator tears running down his face. Who could get mad at that? So since we thought the fact that he felt so bad was enough punishment and torture to keep him from doing it again, we decided that he would work off cost of the new window in chores. We explained to him it was going to cost money to replace what he had broken but we didn't want to just take money out of his piggy bank, that was too easy. We wanted to help him understand the value of money and the responsiblility of repairing something of value that he damaged. So I came up with a list of chores around the house for him. The sweetest thing was Cameron offered to help him with the chores and help pay for the repair...such a sweet, loving sister!
The children have always "helped" out around the house and are responsible for picking up their toys and things around the house, but these were above and beyond regular responsibilities. He has to keep up these chores for two weeks...which they all started out fun for him but I think he now understands chores aren't always convenient, like when it cuts into his Lego building time. But so far he has been a trooper, not complaining too much. He's becoming a pro at unloading the dishwasher, washing and drying dishes, folding laundry, sweeping the kitchen floor, taking out the trash, helping vacuum and we added making his bed every morning...he kinda does that already but we've been slack since school started. I'm actually really enjoying the extra hands around the house.
Now the hard part is trying to figure out how to replace an inset widow pane on a door...any suggestions?
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