Summer Chaos

How do you manage your summer chaos? The wet swimming towels and goggles in the living room, the french fries in the car, the bad attitudes, the fingerprints on the windows, the flies, the never ending appetites?

Here are a couple of ways I'm trying to manage the kid chaos. Everybody starts out each day automatically with 30 minutes worth of chores (we set the timer and all work together as a family). Every time you argue, complain or goof off, you get 5 minutes added to your time. Friends can come over after our chores are done, unless they want to help. Sometimes that works out pretty good. Today I added a new rule. You are only allowed to tattle-tell if the person doesn't stop the annoying behavior after you've asked them at least once politely. Tattle-telling earns you one chore, and the person who gets tattle-told on becomes my personal servant for 15 minutes.

When I give consequences I usually try to make sure they are beneficial to the family in some way. Rather than just taking away privileges or "grounding" them, I like to think of ways they can give back to the people they wronged. I've had the kids make each other's beds or write a letter, or say 3 nice things about each other. Yesterday when the kids were all fighting, I made us all hold hands in a circle and sing a song, swaying back and forth. They hate it at first but it always ends up in laughter. 

Another trick I learned in a book (wish I could remember which or I would give the author proper credit) is to tell your kids where your energy level is. Hope especially loves this, she says, "Mom where is your energy right now?". If my energy is down to my ankles, she loves to work hard to get it up again by asking what she can do for me. They love this game because when my "energy" gets up to my shoulders or my ears, I usually feel like passing out popsicles or taking kids to the park or swimming. I confess I have never been very good at long term rewards, like popsicle sticks or beads or stickers, but my "energy" can go up and down much faster than a jar of beads and we can get instant rewards or consequences that way.

I would really love to hear from other moms. How do you keep your sanity and keep the house running from laundry to errands, to child discipline? It really is an important job we have as wives and mothers and I  think we need all the support and tricks we can get.