Frustration

We had a lot of fun living with Oma and Opa this summer, maybe too much fun because apparently some of my children forgot how to work.  I blame no one but myself and now I'm feeling it. I'm wishing Marie Ricks and Mary Poppins lived next door because I could use some expert help in retraining these kids.

The monster box was Paul's idea made up on the spot during an emergency family council just after lunch yesterday.  No one's been completing their school work, kitchen jobs and beds have been left undone, there are toys everywhere, contention between siblings and one very exhausted mom.  We were told that monsters feed on frustration and gobble up favorite toys and privileges after three warning strikes.

There were several moving boxes still laying around and it was William's idea to give one a scary face.  He said he has over 30 monster designs stored in his brain, they just came to him out of fear at the age of 6.  I told him this one was pretty scary as I watched him sketch it with a sharpie then skillfully saw out the teeth with his new pocket knife.

Today was a much better day! School work and jobs were completed without complaint and though a few kids got strikes, no one dared go beyond two, well everyone except Maryanna. The poor girl was forced to feed "Baby Becca" (her beloved Corrolle doll) to the monster after she bit her little brother's toes.  We decided that kindness and love makes the monster sick and she could quickly make the monster throw up the doll if she could exhibit such behavior.  So that's what she did and Baby Becca was back in her arms with in an hour.

I admit I felt bad when she jammed her baby through the teeth into the box, that just may be very poor parenting but at least it worked for the day and gave me enough of a mental break to start thinking of a more positive training system.  I also realize that 4 months of untraining will take more than a day to fix.