$20 Discipline Plan

I'm sure there are lots of parents out there who have the whole discipline plan nailed.  Their children never flip off the neighbor kids or get in fights or leave their skid-marked underwear on the bathroom floor after a shower.  Yey for them.

I don't happen to be one of those parents.  My discipline techniques change from day to day because I get bored easily and can't be bothered to enforce a time out or a grounding.  Unless it's a grounding from video games.  I hate video games and am always happy to declare them off limits for lengthy amounts of time.

So Andrew suggested the $20 Discipline Plan.  Each child will start the month with a jar of twenty one dollar bills. For every wrong doing, tantrum, fight or neglected chore the child would lose a dollar - which would then be placed in a jar labeled "Mom and Dad".  At month's end, whatever money they have left in their jar they can keep.

Turns out that I wasn't very good at remembering to fine the kids.  I just wanted to yell at them or give them the death glare and be done with it.  Plus, who can remember the tally of dollars lost for each child when you spend the day away from home and those stinking jars?  It got to the point where Andrew begged me to remember the jars or we would be out $80.  That's money we need if we're going to get to see Total Recall, people.  So just in the last few days of July I claimed a collective $16 from their jars and stuffed it triumphantly into the jar labeled "Mom and Dad".  Phew!

On the morning of August 1st, all four boys came charging down the stairs to see what spoils they had managed to hold on to.  They furiously counted their dollars, and I asked, "Who has the most money?"  Drew, with his fists full of ones and shoulders slumped said, "You do!"

Victory.