Mom, Please Give Me Some Chores to Do!

Today has been one miraculous Saturday at the Johnson house, and it's all because of J. He started the day by tidying up his mostly-clean room. Every mom's fond desire, right? But then it got even better. He voluntarily tackled the girls' room without any help from them at all. And let me tell you, their room was looking like a cross between tornado touchdown site and a biohazardous waste containment area. When he so proudly showed off his work I was simply astounded. It didn't stop there, either. As I write this he is bagging up the mounds of weeds that I dug up this morning.

Has my son suddenly decided that he wants to qualify for sainthood? Possibly. But it looks like I've finally found the key to seriously motivating my son. For every chore he earns so many minutes of video game time. (I gave him 15 minutes for cleaning his own room, but he earned a whole hour for picking up that scary disaster in the room next door.) He also can earn additional time for reading . . . another thing he did this morning.

Now if only I could find something that would motivate M like this. So far, no luck.