Thank you to Mrs. Webb again today for a great teaching moment. It is amazing what good teachers can teach parents. On the way home from school today, while we were riding in the car, Abigail handed me a stack of papers. She is notorious for keeping a filthy desk. (In kindergarten and first grade I would sneekily clean out her desk on the days I would volunteer)
As Abigail handed me the large wad of papers, she said, "Mrs. Webb said that the Desk Fairy may be visiting tonight, so I cleaned out my desk." I replied, "The desk fairy?" Abigail said,"Yeah, if my desk is clean, she will leave me a piece of gum at the very back of my desk."
I immediately responded with such a wise mom thing to say, "Well, you guys will have to clean your play room today and see if the FamilyRoomFairy comes to visit tonight." It worked like a charm. Check out my family room! Yeah, Thanks to Lindsey's Mr Gobbles, LG did just gather up two garbage bags full yesterday and put them out of sight, but, still, the girls were moving a whole lot faster tonight and they had purpose in their cleaning...they want a visit from that fairy!
So, the FamilyRoomFairy is leaving some Holly Hobby Bubble Bath tonight: courtesy of my Birthday Box. Now, if I can just keep the room's mess to a minimal, maybe they won't get overwhelmed and will move on it every time I make a mention of the FamilyRoomFairy. And if we keep those two garbage bags full of toys out of the Family Room, it's gotta only help, right?
I have a feeling though that the family room fairy won't last for too long. I was just talking with my mom today about how I am so frustrated as to not being able to keep any real working systems at my house...she reassured me that the good parent is the one that realizes that the "system" no longer has the initial fun and motivation and adopts something new. I hope she is right because I can't even begin to count how many strategies I have used to motivate my kids to clean up this place! Tonight my money is on the FamilyRoomFairy. Let's put good old Mrs. Webb to the test!
I love the family room fairy....I will have to try that one on them. I am reading a book right now "the parenting breakthrough" one of my good friends does the plan from this book and I can't wait to start it with my kids. It's about teaching kids to work and stuff like that. Anyways....you are awesome and just remember to keep flexible and say lots of prayers. :)
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