Seven Kids: Shenanigans

With seven kids, you  know that sometimes you get shenanigans.

In fact, with kids at all, the default activity mode tends to be shenanigans.  Adults tend only to the shenanigans mode when they've had too much to drink or are hanging out with ancient school chums.  This leaves adults feeling mighty superior to the shenanigans, having suppressed outgrown the shenanigans.  Which is well and good, because the wisdom of Solomon rightly points out that shenanigans in children is childishness- but chronic shenanigans into adulthood is foolishness.

found when I searched "common license" pictures

The aim of the parent then is to help the children learn to suppress save the shenanigans for parties with old school chums and keep them in rein. The shenanigans, that is. Not the school chums.  Putting the school chum in a rein would be shenanigans.

How have I been gradually molding my Seven into sobermindedness over shenanigans, then? I thought about it, and came up with this answer.  1) Monty Python,  2) Divide and conquer strategy, and 3) treats.

Treats...  bribes, rewards, bait, stick-and-carrot.  Some parenting experts demand they don't work; animal trainers insist they do.  I have found the truth to be that it's an often overused tool that can be useful when cleverly applied.  Let's go back 17 years; my firstborn is a toddler. I want to speak to my best friend on the phone. We chat for an hour at a time, regularly. She has no children yet, and one day she asks me, "What do you do with that baby while we talk? How do you manage to chat for so long?"  I smile as I say, "I promise him bathtime after the call, and dum-dums."  Yes, I strapped my curious climbing crashing cocky monkey into the high chair and give him a dum-dum. When the sugar itself no longer interests  him, I give him a small bowl or cup of water. He quickly figured out that he could dunk the dum-dum into the water and then "paint" with the colored syrupy stickiness on the tray, stick the candy to his body as if it were tape, rip it off again, and even drum on the tray.  He was happy for an hour. I even used treats for grocery shopping, always going past the bakery LAST on the list to pick up the free cookie offered to sweet children who ask nicely who have been good for mommy. (Yes, I told my kids that was the rule at the store, so sue me.)  ONE CAUTION:  Teach your kids one important lesson-  If you ask for the treat, the answer is always no. Treats are treats because they are offered to you!

Divide and Conquer Strategy... One child is a terrific helper.   Two children are rivals.  Three or more are a party.  In other words, keep it one-on-one.  If one parent is doing yard work, ONE child helps him and the others are sent far off to do something in a different galaxy far far away.  If you want the kitchen clean, ask ONE child and send the others to a far western shore.  If you want opening bell at the octagon, put two in the kitchen.  If you want a party, put them all in there.  How this works, practically and just if not fair, is that the oldest presenting child cleans the kitchen after dinner; the next oldest cleans the dining room. The next oldest cleans up the youngest. The rest are sent to clean up their own rooms, or whatever room I assign, and get ready for bed. Now that my oldest is a junior in high school, he's rarely home for dinner and sometimes heads right down to his room after dinner, so he's rarely counted as "the oldest presenting child."  But this is still just (if not fair in the next-born's eyes) because frankly, we all know that the oldest child pretty much cleaned the kitchen for the last 6 or 7 years, right?

Last, Monty Python.  I'm kidding, right?  The kings of shenanigans?  It started this way.  A few years ago, long before we even started our kitchen remodel in our old house, I was on the computer within 5 feet of my children who had been left to clean the kitchen. In my naiveté, I had left 2 kids to clean the kitchen. (I guess I figured I was right there....) They, of course, argued over who was going to wash and who was going to dry. In a moment of unexplained brilliance, I called the boys to come look at my computer screen~  they weren't arguing right, I proclaimed.  They needed some instruction on better arguing.  And I clicked 'play' on the You Tube video of.... The Argument Clinic.  The boys stared, transfixed and confused as they witnessed Monty Python for their first time.  At the end, they requested, "Play it again?" By the end of the second time they were giggling and following along with their own, "Is not! Is too!"  They begged to watch a few more from the "suggested videos" and discovered The Ministry of Silly Walks and The Dead Parrot. I sent them back to the kitchen to finish the cleaning- and the rest of the night was saved by "No no 'e's not dead, 'e's, 'e's restin'!"

I guess it's true what they say, a spoonful of sugar 'elps the medicine go down.

I am linking up to Women Living Well Wednesday and Works for Me Wednesday (at We are That Family). Be sure to visit both sites to get tips for living. I learn something new every week!