Chores and Rules - NO WAY?

Shortly after we lost my Mother I realized that my Dad, as amazing as he is, would need extra help especially with my nieces. Keep in mind that my parents have been active guardians of my nieces for just over 5 years, carefully trying to balance being Grandparents with the responsibility of being parents. I always secretly felt bad for them because even though I knew my parents were more than happy to have my nieces full time, I felt like it robbed them the joy of being actual Grandparents. You know when Grandma and Grandpa load you up with sweets, spoil the crap out of you and then send you back to Mom and Dad for structure and routine... that part of being Grandparents.

This caused SO many unnecessary fights with my Mom and me because I felt like she was way to easy going with the girls and they weren't learning any form of responsibility or accountability. I never took the time to respect the fact that she was just trying to be a Grandma. What I should have done is exactly what I'm doing now, I was just so caught up with my own issues and didn't want to step on my parent's toes. Looking back I feel like the damage that would have been done by me stepping up and doing what I'm doing now, but hindsight is 20/20 and I refuse to live with regerts (spelled like that on purpose).

As we settle in the new "normal" way of life without Mom and summer came to an end I began putting together routines for the 2 girls just the same as I'd been working with Zabrina on. At first I was terrified that the girls would end up hating me or that it would cause so much drama it wouldn't be worth it, so just like I did when I decided to introduce Zabrina to a habit routine filled with to do lists, chores, and healthy habits (along with a reward system) and started slow.

The first step I took was sitting down with the girls and explaining to them the reasoning for the changes. I explained to them that I didn't want it to turn into a situation where I was just forcing them to help more around the house, but more of a team coming together to get our house into a more functional order and to keep things running smoothly. I explained the extra pressure that was put on the adults when it came to keeping up with all the things Grandma was taking care of. I also told them that their opinions were important to me as well and as long as they understood that it was necessary to have a standard set of house rules, and that there were tasks that HAD to be handled, I was more than willing to talk things out with them and take into consideration suggestions they had.

The next week I created a list of the chores around the house that I knew the girls could handle and a starting list of rules. I already had tentative plans for which child would be responsible for each task but I decided to ask the girls which ones they thought should be given to who. That weekend we had another "Botner Meeting" and discussed the chore list. I was surprised when the girls willingly distributed the chores amongst themselves. I was even more in shock when I noticed that they had CHOSEN the exact same chores that I would have assigned them (with the exception of the animals they were responsible for feeding which I had flip flopped). I followed up the choosing of the chores with brining out the new "rules" list. I explained to them that the rules would be baseline for the entire household to ensure everyone was treating each other and our environment with respect and appreciation. I then asked each girl what they thought was important to add to the house rules list.

Not to my surprise Zabrina was the first one to chime in with "Well we shouldn't hit each other" and I wrote it down. I then took notes as I witnessed them work together to form what is now our list of house rules, with very minimal input from me or Uncle Chicken (Clayton).

I told the girls that we were going camping the following weekend so the chores wouldn't take full effect until the week after, which would also be the first week of school. But I was caught completley off guard when before we went camping each of them had started doing the chores they picked out.

We are now in week 5 of chores and official rules starting and what a growing process it has been for the entire family. Along the way so far we have had many "negotiation" moments and "what in the heck do we do now" moments but overall it is starting to bring on a sense of routine in the house!