The Entitlement Trap

I've been listening to The Entitlement Trap by Richard and Linda Eyre.  I'm loving it.  There are so many great ideas that I would like to implement for our family.  I've had the audiobook since this summer, but really started to delve back into it after tithing settlement last month.  Every year when we have tithing settlement I feel like a failure as a parent.  Joseph and I have always been full tithe payers and I guess we've always depended on that example for our children to gain testimonies of this principle, but every year I feel a nudging that we need to do better with this.  Our oldest willingly pays tithing, but has been paying it when tithing settlement comes around and then ends up paying tithing on money that she's probably had for a couple of years and already paid tithing on.  The others have paid tithing, some willing, some not so much.   This year I had a strong feeling that we needed to do something.  For many different reasons I've decided that our kids need to be more part of our "family economy."  I vaguely remembered Richard and Linda having a chapter about that in their audiobook about this and just a few months ago I read a book called, The Parenting Breakthrough: A Real-Life Plan to Teach Your Kids to Work, Save Money, and Be Truly Independent by Merillee Boyack.  I loved all of the ideas and had tried successfully and unsuccessfully to implement some of them into our family.   When we started the Parenting Breakthrough ideas we were doing pretty well for a while, my girls were learning to do their own laundry and helping more, but then life got busy and we fell off the bandwagon.  I need to revisit that book and commit to do better.

I've decided that my New Year's Resolution is going to be implementing a "Money System" into our family.  We've started and I know there are going to be wrinkles that we'll have to iron out as time goes on, but I figure it's better to start and then tweak things where we need to.  We aren't doing things exactly the same way as the Eyre's suggest, we're adapting it to work a little better for our family, but I like the general ideas and principles they talk about.  Here are some of the ideas from the part of their book on establishing a family economy.  These are random notes that I've typed into my iPhone while listening, so I'm hoping they'll make sense to me if I refer to them later. 
*Make a list of things that need to be done in order to run you household, put value in a dollar amount on those things that need to be done
* pay attention to how much you are spending on things your child wants each month - have that be the amount you pay them - then expect them to pay for things they want, whether it be to go out with friends or to buy clothing, toys, games, books, etc.  They probably won't care about buying underwear and socks, so you should still plan on buying the things like this that they "need" as well as food, shelter, transportation.  
*Explain to the child that there is certain money that comes into the household and that things need to be done to keep a household running, you feel they are old enough to be part of the family economy.  They suggest 8, we are trying to do it on a simpler level with Aaron (6 1/2) and Isaac (4).  It's not going as well as it is with the girls, so I can see their point, but we are still going to try to include them.  
*Have the requirement for them to do what is required to get ready for school, homework, music practice, scriptures and prayer, homework, cleaning up a zone in the house, bedtime prep, to bed on time...just a few examples.  When I first read through this I thought, "These are things they should be doing anyway, why would I pay them?"  I reconciled with this thought.  These ARE things that are expected of them, but we are trying to teach them how an economy works and to help them feel ownership over their lives.  We also plan to be very strict.   Right now we have about 20 boxes for the week they have to check off.  Our plan is to give them 100% of our agreed upon amount IF they get 100% in doing all that is required.  If they miss one mark, they will get 50% and if they miss more than 1, they get nothing.  We are allowing them to make-up two of the piano days, since their teacher only requires them to practice 5 days a week.  They get a small amount of extra money each day they do their practicing in the a.m. We've always expected them to practice in the early a.m. because it likely doesn't happen if we wait.  We always wake them to practice early in the a.m. because that is when we expect them to practice,  but if they lally gag and don't get to the bench in time they will forfeit the opportunity to get that extra amount.  So far they have done awesome and that one who takes her sweet old time getting to the bench is the first one there in the morning.  I would even go as far as saying she is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.  Makes me want to kiss her face and do a happy dance, which I think I have. :)  

Right now we are doing alot of reminding.  They suggest not doing so much of the reminding, but I hope to remind (nag) them for the first few weeks in hopes that they can taste the fruits of success and be motivated to keep going.  

I think it's going to be really hard to avoid bailing them out.  It gets annoying listening to my kids complain when they don't get their way, but I really want them to learn now while the stakes are small.  I really want this system to work and I know that if I let natural consequences fall into place, we will have more success.  

Tomorrow is our first pay-day.  I have my "bank" (a SentrySafe money box).  I have plenty of small bills and coins because one other thing I didn't mention was that we plan to teach them the 10-20-70 rule.  10% tithing, 20% savings and 70% spend freely or save freely, really whatever they want to do, but we will have the expectation that they pay for the things they desire.  The Eyre's recommend doing "checkbooks" and having them write a check to the bank when they want to get money out, but we are going to give them the cash.  We feel like exchanging the tangible will work better for them right now.   I'm still trying to figure out how we will teach interest and compound interest.  I'm still formulating how I want to do that.  I'm also toying with the idea of letting them make-up two boxes, by doing those jobs (even though it's past the day) and then memorizing an article of faith for each box they miss. 

One of the great things is that because we have family prayer and scripture study as part of the chart, they are now fully invested and have taken ownership in making sure that it happens.  Before, we had certain children who would always find an excuse to leave the table, or remember something they really needed to do. I know, it sounds bad when you say it, but I figure if we can just make that VERY important thing happen, regardless of how, the Spirit will touch them and it will benefit them for good.  In a perfect world, we would all be motivated intrinsically, but something extrinsic rewards are just what our mortal world needs.  Hopefully we'll move towards the intrinsic. 

Other things I've really loved from their book that have to do with families.  
*Write our family traditions in a special book
*come up with some birthday traditions specific to each child
*have some smaller everyday traditions - dinner time games, happy/sad, etc.
*weekly family meetings
*mission statement - a few words that describe a vision for our family, have each child come up with a sentence or two that describes what we are about as a family- simplify and talk about these things to come up with the statement summed up of the contributions
*have family laws and consequences - peace (repentance bench) - Respect (let's start over) - Ask (if we don't know where you are, you can't go next time) - order (clean your room before you go anywhere)  - obedience (please is a magic word we will use and that means you "have" to do what we are asking)

I'm sure I will be able to add to this list jumbled old list, but this is my work in progress.....now, off to make sure tomorrow's payday will be a success. 

Happy New Year!

On New Year's Eve we spent the night at home and hosted some of the kid's friends.  I love being home.  I actually went to bed at 10:43 (on the dot!) and let Joe take care of hosting until 12:30 a.m.  I knew that at midnight the fireworks outside our bedroom window would wake me, they did.  I sat up long enough to look at them and then went straight back to bed.  I'm so much more of a morning person. 

Hello WINTER! 

 We see so many deer in our neighborhood.  The other day, we counted a total of 8 in our backyard.  I love it! It makes me feel like I live in the mountains, but I know that come summertime everyone will be complaining about the deer eating from their gardens. 

Merry Christmas!

Brynn and Abby were excited to check the Norad Tracker when they woke up to make sure Santa had indeed made his stop. 

This is a terrible quality photo, we really need to invest in an SLR instead of always using our iPhones, but I wanted to capture it because of what happened.  Isaac gave Aaron a Penguin Dreamlight and Aaron was really excited about it.  Santa also gave Aaron a Bear Dreamlight.  Without any prompting from us Aaron gave the Bear to Isaac.  Isaac was so happy, but for me it was best Christmas present ever, to see Aaron do something so kind for his brother. 

Brynn and Abby also had a lot of fun thinking about that thing that would please the other.  They both succeeded.  We have a deal with Santa, he fills the stocking and we give our kids the rest of their presents.  Santa fills them with all sorts of junk that I would never buy (darn that Santa!) as well as a few other little things. 

Brynn picked up some beautiful jewelry for me.  She is so sweet.

Isaac was about as thrilled to get this little Darth Maul action figure as anything else that day.

Aaron's big gift were a couple of remote control Lego Trains.  We spent the next two days putting them together.  It was a great bonding time.  The cutest part about giving him this gift was that he couldn't believe that Joseph and I used our money to buy it for him.  He kept asking us if we bought it with our money and when we told him "yes!" he kept saying over and over, "I can't believe you used your own money to buy this for me."  He's wanted it for a couple of years, but I think we must have told him he was too young and it was too expensive.  He was so pleased.  We loved witnessing his happiness.

Abby made me an awesome calendar that I keep in my laundry room. 

I'm not sure who this came from, but it makes me laugh everytime I see it.

Our big family gift this year was something that we have talked about and mulled over for quite a few years.  Joe hasn't wanted to have video games, and we got away with it for a very long time.  It really helped that we lived in California and had really mild, or rather really no winter.  Since moving to Utah, it gets hard for the kids to get physical activity when it's so cold outside (you can only last so long out there).  After lots of studying, we decided to do the Xbox Kinect so that they had to use their bodies to manipulate the games.  It has been the best gift.  When the kids play they are running, dancing, sweating, and often they have sore muscles the next day.  We've even had quite a bit of fun with it ourlselves. 

Grandma and Grandpa wanted to make sure they could see the kids open their presents so we Skyped Christmas morning.  We ended up staying home all day to enjoy Christmas at our house as a family.  They treated the kids with lots of fun games for the Kinect.  After opening presents we enjoyed our Quiche and English Scones with Devonshire Cream.  We were rich fooded out after that and were so excited to get back to our healthier meals. 

It was a beautiful White Christmas Day!

I spent the first two days in my pajamas putting together the train.  After a couple of days I emerged from my Lego cacoon, showered and started eating normal food. 

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve day was a day of preparation for us. Joseph worked most of the day to try to get more patients admitted and at home we shoveled snow, baked, cooked, cleaned, shoveled more snow, made last-minute runs to the store, played, and baked and cooked some more. We had a beautiful white-out that made for a beautiful Christmas Day. 

When Joseph returned home from work he set up his laptop with a projector so we could track Santa making his deliveries all over the world.  The kids loved keeping tabs on that jolly man and happily went to bed when the time came because they could see Santa was on his way to work his magic!

Joseph also set up the movie "Arthur Christmas" while we made final prepartations for dinner and breakfast the next morning.

This year we voted on pasta and chicken parmigiana for dinner with all the fixin's.  Grandma and Grandpa joined up for our evening. 

I'm not sure why, but in alot of pictures with Grandpa, he makes these funny faces.  Maybe he's just teasing Grandma who is taking the picture. 

The kids could hardly contain their excitement and while we did the dishes, they quickly turned everything into a dance party. 

Because we had read Luke 2 with my family the night before, we decided to talk about Samuel's foretelling of the Christ-child from the Book of Mormon.  The boys were happy to act as Samuel and Nephi as we told the story of a Nephite Christmas. 

Joseph did a great job keeping everyone interested with his enthusiastic teaching skills.  (I hate my gray carpet.  Sometimes I secretly wish something would happen to it so I could replace it, but it's only about 4 years old and great quality, so I can't justify replacing it just yet.  It has a tint of sage in the sunlight, but is a dull gray with the lighting downstairs. I'm thinking they must have gotten a great deal on it. haha!) Joseph gave everyone the chance to share their feelings about the Savior after he finished.  We then opened up their new pajamas and new books and the kids were excited for bed.

Santa's getting closer, better head to bed!

Abby made sure that Santa and his reindeer were treated.  I think she wanted a few extra points with the Claus.  I love how she told Santa to read the directions to make the cocoa and the way she asked if she was on the nice list. 

Merry Christmas to all and to ALL a good night!

Vest Family Christmas

Grandma and Grandpa planned a Christmas celebration on the Sunday before Christmas.  We met and ate dinner and dessert,  decorated sugar cookies, played pictionary, acted out the nativity story,  had a talent program and then called it a night.  It was a fun crazy night.  Getting a picture with all of the kids was nearly impossible.  They have so much fun when they get with their cousins.  I had to include serveral outtakes.  We also had a Christmas celebration with Joseph's family the night before, but unfortunately I don't think we have any photos of it.