{"id":3597,"date":"2014-03-21T07:42:56","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T11:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=3597"},"modified":"2014-03-22T21:42:59","modified_gmt":"2014-03-23T01:42:59","slug":"dealing-with-dessert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/21\/dealing-with-dessert\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealing with Dessert"},"content":{"rendered":"

A strange thing has happened at our house: our girls have started begging to help out with chores around the house!\u00a0 How did we do it, you ask?\u00a0 Did we beg them, brainwash them, bribe them, drug them? No, maybe, kind of and depends on how you look at it!<\/p>\n

Dessert has become the bane of my existence as a parent.\u00a0 I can \u201cJust say no!\u201d to TV, iPad, makeup, unhealthy snacks and so much more, but somehow dessert has become the norm, a little sweet treat after eating a good lunch or dinner (though not after both in one day!) But the problem has become the NEED they have for dessert. The crying, fussing, and general hysteria that ensues with the simple words \u201cNo dessert today\u201d is outrageous.\u00a0 No dessert has become the ultimate punishment, and it works. But I don\u2019t like to focus on punishments, I like to focus on rewards.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s where being helpful comes in.\u00a0 I decided from now on they will earn dessert by being helpful around the house.\u00a0 For every chore they help us with, they earn a dessert.\u00a0 They can earn dessert by doing things that help me and hubby like helping empty the dishwasher, helping put groceries away, helping clean up Doodle\u2019s toys and helping wash the cars.\u00a0 Things that they have always been responsible for, though, do not earn dessert.\u00a0 This includes things like cleaning their playroom and helping put their laundry away.\u00a0 However, fussing about doing their usual tasks can get an earned dessert taken away.<\/p>\n

I made a chart showing some of the tasks they can do to earn dessert as well as different desserts they enjoy:<\/p>\n

\"chore<\/a><\/p>\n

I then \u201claminated\u201d the chart with contact paper<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a> \"SONY<\/a><\/p>\n

and hung in our family message center I set up on the end of our pantry cabinet.<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a><\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a>I had each of the girls write their name and color 7 clothespins.\u00a0\u00a0The clothespins will be used to show how many desserts they\u2019ve earned.\u00a0 Each time they do a helpful task we move a clothespin to the \u201cdessert\u201d section. Each time they have dessert, a clothespin is moved back up to the \u201cchores\u201d section.\u00a0 If they have no clothespins in the dessert section, they don\u2019t get dessert.<\/p>\n

We just made the chart, but have been earning dessert for just over a week now and it\u2019s working!\u00a0 We\u2019ve been searching for daily tasks to each dessert but I look forward to them being able to \u201cstock up\u201d desserts as tasks need to be completed instead of coming up with one at the last minute as we\u2019ve been doing.\u00a0 I still plan to have \u201cNo dessert days\u201d but will have to come up with a new ultimate punishment!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A strange thing has happened at our house: our girls have started begging to help out with chores around the house!\u00a0 How did we do it, you ask?\u00a0 Did we beg them, brainwash them, bribe them, drug them? No, maybe, kind of and depends on how you look at it! Dessert has become the bane […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9],"tags":[81,139,93,138,140],"class_list":["post-3597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-mommys-life","category-family-life","tag-children","tag-chores","tag-crafts","tag-dessert","tag-motivation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3597"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3605,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3597\/revisions\/3605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}