Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Accountable Kids

As a stay-at-home/homeschool mama with "active, assertive" children, I have often felt like I was a tattle-tale at the end of the day, as I recounted to my husband all the things I thought he should know about.  I had handled the situations during the day, but as I'm sure you find in your home, the kiddos often respond differently to Dad than Mom and particularly some of those boys who happen to have a strong "dominion sensor."

Anyhow, cutting to the chase here, I wanted to find a way to "report" everything we did during the day, the good, the bad and the.....rest.  Being a homeschool family with lofty goals for our children, my husband has let me take the reins in teaching the kids, but likes to know what the heck we do all day.  He doesn't, however, like to listen to me moan about the kids, etc.

I came up with an incredibly simple way for all of us to be accountable to him in our daily accomplishments and attitudes.  I've attached the little report card that I do for each kid at the end of each day (see below).  Don't be impressed with the quantity of subjects listed on the card....we don't do ALL that everyday.  It's pretty self explanatory and I am quite sure that 99.9% of you are more creative and computer savvy than I, so I'm willing to bet whatever you come up with will be a lot prettier and even handier.  My husband doesn't have time to read a big long list of stuff and I'm reporting on 4 kiddos at this point, so lots of verbiage, etc. on each of them is a bit much.  That's how I came up with this one.  Please, oh, please, let me know what you come up with.  I'd love to keep improving on mine.  This has rid me of my temptation to nag, complain to and lecture the kiddos.  I know none of you ever do this.

By the way, I think this could be effective for non-homeschooling families as well, if Mom is the one who gets them out the door in the morning, oversees homework and chores, etc.

Happy Accounting!




1 comment:

Stephanie said...

oooohhhh. I'll totally have to try this. I'm also going to try Danneca's manners game. It doesn't sound fun enough for just sitting around in the evening, but it sounds perfect for car boredom/fighting. So I'll try to get some scenarios together and stashed in my car, to be ready.