Friday, April 1, 2011

Me First!

Sharing is a way of life around here. Our kids share rooms, toys, a bathroom, and the bench seats of our vehicle whether they want to or not, 24/7.

Makes for some tense moments.

I’m pretty sure I will never understand what is so important about being the first at the sink to wash hands.

Limited resources make for tension and great learning opportunities.

The fight at the sink was met with the reminder that it is far kinder and more honorable to put the other person first. Good manners, too…

Sometimes, it’s good to turn a tense situation into a silly one.

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Silly game to the rescue…

Okay… Here are the rules.

1. You may only have one animal cracker in your hands at a time.

2. The animal cracker you get out of the container must be given to someone else.

3. Everyone must be taken care of and supplied with animal crackers.

4. Only one set of hands in the animal cracker container at a time.

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Note the animal cracker in her mouth… But, she only had one cracker in her hands!

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Wow! They can be downright civilized if there is food at stake.

And it was fun, too!

 

How are you teaching your little ones good manners and hard things like putting others first? Hope you’ll share your great ideas!

 

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5 comments:

  1. I struggle with this daily. I know they are going to fight, but it wears me out! My new thing is that if I hear fighting, I give one warning. If I hear it again, they have to stop whatever they were playing and come clean for 30 minutes! they dread it and I get things picked up!

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  2. My husband has a rule that if you say me first or push to be in front you go to the end of the line and get to go last. Of course if everyone is pushing to be first then I guess you have to decide which order they should go in.

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  3. We are working on teaching patience at our house. We also are working on trying to determine the things that are worth getting upset about it. It seems to be working (Fingers Crossed). I want them to to take a step back and realize that it is not that big of a deal. We also tag team our chore list which helps with team building and gets the chores done quicker. Thanks for sharing your game idea.

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  4. What a cute post. I just picked up a box of those animal crakers yesterday...I'd like to try your game. (Our other box is now holding pretzels.)

    A game we have always liked is the "what now mama" game. Sometimes we play it with no treats and it's manditory, like when someone is coming over and we have to pick up really fast. But if I get a big bag of M&Ms we play with rewards. They line up and when they say, "what now mama" they get a treat and I give them another duty, then they come back when it's finished and I reward them for asking how they can help.

    Win win for all.

    Cute blog, just found you today,

    Anna in Alaska

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