Back to the Buttons

It's back to the buttons!

A while back I was out of sorts on what I could do to get my boys to help out around the house. 

Who am I kidding?!? 

Heck, I just wanted them to pick up their toys for goodness sakes! 

So I went on ivillage message boards. If you have never been there you should really check it out. It's  a great parenting resorce when I go to get some advice that's not given by my family, my in-laws or my friends. You can get answers from other (real & regular) women & men that have been in your shoes before so they don't talk to you like you are some horrible parent and they love to share their experience and opinion. There are also tons of other message boards. Health & Fitness, Money, Gossip TV talk, tons of things! 

So back to the buttons! I went in one of the message board and asked others what they had for suggestions.

I kept reading all of these articles from the so called "experts" about what to do and what not to do or you might ruin your kid for life. I was so confused on what to do. Finally someone responded with the idea of a Button Jar. It was Brilliant in my mind and I wanted to start it that say day.

I remembered that I had this jar full of buttons in our craft box that would be perfect so I pulled it out. There are several different buttons, plain ones, decritive ones, shapes of dinos, cars and snowflakes to kittens and dogs. You name it, it's in there. I think that might be the most fun for the boys... picking out the button they want. I have to tell you though, my clever 5 year old.... he likes to pick the biggest buttons because he said 

"Duh, mom, it gets you to the top faster!" 

So that is the "game" of the jar. Get your buttons to your name and you get to pick a prize. The "prizes" range from getting to pick a prize out of the prize box (random things I have picked up along the way that I find on clearance. Pencils, stickers, notepads...), to an outing with mom or dad, to having a playdate or picking a dinner out for the night. Some weeks they get the buttons to the top twice but most of the time it tends to take them a little over a week to fill them up. Basically they 2-3 "fun" things a month on top of all the super fun stuff we already do of course! lol

I already had these great Chore Magnets that I ordered on Etsy a few years ago. At last... 

The

  "Chore Chart" 

Basically the chart works like this. I move some of the "Must Dos" to the To Do side and then through out the day, they can move the magnets of the chores they completed. I'm sure you noticed that some are for brushing teeth, homework and clean table. Yes those are simple things that are always expected of them but I find it motivates them just a little more to get some "easy" buttons. Also, they are only 5 & 3. It's a chore just to get them to brush their teeth twice a day. I should get a button for that! You may have also noticed that there are doubles for the Hearts & Stars... I use those for the Super Star of the Day & the Super Sweetheart of the day. 

We just took a trip to Disney World and now that we are back, it's time to get back to the Button Game. I wasn't sure if it would be an easy transition back but so far so good. Ian was very excited to pick out his buttons last night.