Marble Jar Report

For Kathleen's birthday this year, she received the wonderful gift of chores.  As with any new program that involves coercing children to do anything other than what they want to do, I was anxious to see if it would stick.

For those of you (all one of you) who were wondering how it's worked out, I would like to report that it has been a total and complete success.

While I running one morning, Kathleen came into my room to tell me that she had cleaned up the toy room and could she please have a marble?  She skipped happily out of the room and I was happy to have a mess in the house picked up without any help or coercion on my part.

It has proved so popular that Sophia also has a marble jar and she helps Kathleen pick up her room, unload the dishwasher, put away her clean clothes, and clean up the toy room.  Kathleen also folds and puts away the kitchen towels and washcloths, helps to set the table, and picks up everyone's clothes after bath.

The best part about all of these completed tasks is that they're accomplished with no yelling, no nagging, and children that are happy to get a marble at the end.

And so I would like to tell everyone today that with the help of a little bribery and a little threatening that you too can start your child young in a life of labor.  Maybe by the time she's ten I can have her trained to cook three-course meals....