I always love it when there's an exciting event pending that I can use as motivation for the kids. This Friday it was decorating the house for Halloween. I told the kids that the only way we could decorate is if the house was cleaned from top to bottom by Friday evening.
Sure, I can get my kids to clean on any old day, but it's so much more effective when I can throw out comments such as "Oh no! It doesn't look like we're going to get done in time, but that's okay! We can always decorate next week." or "That's okay Spencer, you don't need to help out. We'll miss you tonight when you're in your room and the rest of us are decorating."
Followed by "NO! We'll Clean! We'll Clean!"
Ahh, I love it! At this point I can get them to do pretty much anything from taking out the garbage to cleaning the toilet.
Too bad there's not always an excting event that I can use for a bribe, or I mean, reward. I prefer to think of it as "Positive Parenting" rather than bribery.
Maybe tomorrw I'll bake a cake. "What? You're too tired to do anything? That's okay, Dad and I will eat the cake ourselves."
Works every time.
I like your style...parenting style that is. I too used this one, except Tess did all the cleaning.
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