POKER CHIP SYSTEM

January 1st and New Year’s Resolutions scare me. Such a commitment!  So we are not calling what I am proposing a resolution – instead, let’s call it a game.  I am much more interested in that.  Plus, it is already February – oops, too late for a New Year’s resolution.

I went to hear a speaker when the boys were little, and this psychologist went into great detail about what he called, “The Poker Chip System.” It sounded a little hokey at first but I tried it and it was fun and had some hidden benefits.  I think it is good for kids about age 3 and up but younger ones can do it too, just a bit modified.  It might be fun for grandparents to be in on it as well.  It looks complicated but it is really not.  It just takes a bit of time to set it up but I promise the time you will save later will more than make up for it.

Here is how it works –

First, Mom or Dad has to get prepared with poker chips – plenty of red, blue and white ones – available at Walmart, Amazon, the drug store, etc.  You will also need a clear glass or plastic jar for each of your children.  Each jar should have a big label with the child’s name – the kids can make and decorate these if you like. Now, you are ready for step 2.

Next, you sit down with your children – a family meeting so to speak (my own children will moan and groan at this because my husband was the only one who liked having a family meeting!). With paper and pen, get ready to write. If you have older kids, ask for a volunteer to be the secretary.  The first list is all of the things you expect your children to do – this is pretty dependent on their ages, of course.  For the young ones, you will put things like brushing your teeth, picking up your toys, putting your coat in the closet. But get creative as well, also list things like being sweet to your baby brother, getting something for mommy or daddy in another room, going to bed sweetly without getting up again. For older children you might add getting your homework done or being ready for school or waking up with your alarm clock.  For teens, it could be washing the car, mowing the grass, doing the laundry.  Or how about for a teenaged girl who never wants to do anything with Mom and Dad, put going to breakfast with Dad on the list. I think you get the picture. Once your list is complete (you can always add stuff later) you move to step 3.

Next, you need to put a value on each activity on the list.  Perhaps brushing your teeth is worth 1 chip but going to bed without a fuss is 5 chips.  Maybe washing the car is 10 chips.  You will want to make the value commensurate with the things you are working on specifically or how difficult it is for your child to do something.

Now, comes the fun part for you AND for your children.  You are going to write a list (if your secretary is tired, you may have to take over) of how the kids get to “spend” the chips they have earned. You may need to make a few suggestions to get the ball rolling. For the youngest ones, going for ice cream or maybe you will read an extra book at bedtime might be good options. An older one might look for two hours to spend with Mom, all by themselves, or have Dad play a game with them. As you might imagine, at our house, having the noise, mess and chaos of four boys was enough.  So, guess what the boys MOST wanted – to have someone to spend the night! So that went on the list. I tried really hard to keep things off the list that cost money – like getting to pick out a toy at the store. I tried to gear the list toward activities. But if your child is really motivated by something little like a beanie baby (I know I’m dating myself!) or a trip to the dollar store is something you want to add – do it.  This is your family’s list – make it reflect who you are. Warning: do not put anything on the list that you really do not want or can’t do!

Next is to determine values for everything on both lists.  Brushing teeth might already be a habit so that would probably have a value on the low end like 1-2 chips.  Whereas, going to bed without a fuss may be practically impossible, so maybe that gets a value of 10 chips. If having a friend to spend the night is something you cringe at the thought of, give it a high “price” tag – like 30 chips or more. Get your children’s feedback but really think about how many chips you think it might be reasonable for your child to earn in a week.  Then, consider what they might want to spend them on – you might not have two hours to spend with them every other day!  Also expect the children to energetically work away at first, when the game is fresh and new, to pile up those chips.  It will naturally taper off. You may quickly realize that something you put on the list, like going to a movie, costs too little in terms of chips and a revision is in order. Promise the children that you won’t randomly change the lists or values but that a family meeting will be called to review everything in a week or so.

Last step before the real fun begins.  Post the two lists somewhere everyone can see them.  For little ones who can’t read yet – do the list with pictures – brushing teeth, going to bed, putting toys away – clip art is readily available on the internet, of course.  Place the jars in a highly visible spot where everyone can see them and little ones can reach them or not – it is up to you (plastic is probably better for them). Keep the chips where you have access and can sort of keep track of them.  Stress the importance of honesty and perhaps discuss what might happen if anyone tries to cheat the system. Hopefully this won’t be a problem – but a teachable moment may come your way.  On the flip side, encourage the older kids to help out their younger siblings so the little ones can have the joy of earning chips without your help.

Our kids loved receiving chips and dropping them in their jars and watching their jars fill up. You will have to decide if your kids are old enough/trustworthy enough to get and add their own chips. You don’t want this to be a pain for you, that takes up even more of your valuable time so any way to you can think to make the process simpler is a good thing.

Here are some of the fun hidden benefits.  Not only will you have a break from nagging but the kids will be energized to take on more responsibility. Don’t think of this as bribing – more of an incentive program.  When one works hard at a job, one might get a bonus, right? Your children are learning that good things come from being an active, contributing member of the family.

So, you have white, red and blue chips.  Each should have a different value so here is where the math skills come in.  Depending on your child’s age, of course, explain that white ones are worth one, blue are worth 5, red are worth 10 or whatever. You can decide what color goes with what value. For instance, they could turn in 10 white chips and get a blue one.  Use their chips to work on counting, sorting, etc.

I knew the system was working when, one of Philip’s friends, Andre, an adorable, little, curly haired 8-year-old, looked up at me and said, “Wow, I can’t believe Philip spent ALL his chips to have me come spend the night. I must be pretty special.”

Bottom line: Making good, responsible behavior into a fun game – nothing wrong with that. And they say if you do something 30 days in a row, you will have formed a habit, so maybe that will be happening too.

If you give this a try, please comment to tell me and others how it is going and if you have some special ways your family made the system work for you.  Good luck!

A NEW BIKE FOR CHRISTMAS

Two of our sons, Philip and Edward, are bicycle enthusiasts. When Philip was about 10-years-old, he bought his own bike with money he had saved. He lovingly cared for that bike, even as far as drying it off after splashing through rain puddles. Such a great example of the pride one takes in contributing toward something meaningful.  When Philip was in college, his love of bikes continued to include the starting of a student-run bicycle business that he and his friend/business partner, Sam, started. 

Edward, our engineering-minded son loved the building part of bikes – finding parts from hither and yon and making it all fit together.  He also enjoyed the provenance of each piece – where and when it was manufactured, the quality of the workmanship.

Edward had been working on assembling the parts to a very particular type of Italian bike.  A major piece was still unfound – something like the frame!  Anyway, he was visiting his brother, Philip, in Brooklyn, when he saw, hanging on the wall of Philip’s apartment, the very frame he had been searching for – amazing!  And it was black – perfect.  Philip sold him the piece, shipped it to him, Edward completed his bike and was thrilled with the finished product.  A short while later, he rode it to work for the first time and carefully locked it up. When he finished his work day, he went out to ride home only to find a mangled bike, which someone had backed into and basically destroyed. Edward took the tragedy on two wheels to Marshall, the bicycle fixer guru in Charleston and sadly, it looked like a hopeless case.  It took Edward a month to share the sad news with his brother.

Edward was bike-less and bereft.  He kept going into shops but couldn’t find anything he liked.  He visited us in Sarasota and went to the bike store there.  To make a long story short (I can hear my sister saying, “get on with it, Laura!”), he saw an amazing bike. He came home, showing us this masterpiece of engineering through pictures on his cell phone.  It was too expensive for him to purchase but he was drooling. You know where this is going – I talked it over with Jay and we decided to get the bike for Edward for Christmas. I was heading to the bike shop, checkbook in hand and thought, wait a minute… I don’t know anything about bikes, this could be a ripoff, so I got Philip to call the shop and check it out. Philip called me back and said, “Mom, you don’t want to buy that bike.” I won’t go into the reasons, but I was bummed.  I asked Philip how can we get Edward a bike he will love? Philip said he would look into it.  So, Philip went to work on it. He found some random guy, in Italy (!) on eBay selling exactly the frame Edward needed to rebuild his bike, which still sat in Marshall’s shop.  Philip had the bike frame and wheel set sent directly to Marshall.  At Christmas in Florida, Edward opened a box with a picture of the bike (which I had folded into an origami shirt – don’t know how to fold a bike) and he flipped! There were all sorts of crazy connections with the bike shop that originally made the frame, in the area of northern Italy where Edward had studied for a year, etc. When he got back to Charleston, Marshall had his new bike ready to ride.  Never have you seen a happier boy with a new bike for Christmas!

So, it’s a week later and Edward and I stopped into see Marshall (for an appraisal so the new bike can be insured) and there is icing on the cake.  The post office tried to deliver the package, from Italy, on Christmas Eve to Marshall’s shop but he had gone home early.  At 7 pm that night, there was a knock at the door. Angela, his “mail lady” stood at the door with a crate.  She apologized for having looked up his name and address but since it was on her way home, she thought she would drop it off, being Christmas the next day and all. Angela had been delivering his mail for 15 years so it wasn’t weird, but instead rather wonderful and sweet and awesome.

Bottom line:  Absolutely yes, you can believe in miracles. Especially at Christmas-time. 

Although Edward is 30-years-old now, I couldn't help but see this face this past Christmas morning.

RAISING KIDS TO BE CHRISTIANS

Raising your kids to be Christians is, at the very least, tricky.  I’ve seen all sorts of different outcomes and it can be pretty stress inducing. Those of us who have Jesus in the center of our lives and feel such strength and comfort and sureness in His existence can feel pretty desperate for our children to feel that way too. But it is a delicate balance.  If we force our beliefs down our kids’ throats, they might feel like they have been released from prison when they head off to college – never to grace the door of a church again.  You may be one who feels that way. Even members of the clergy can end up with children who are just not buying it. 

Our four sons and their significant others are all in very different places from one another on their spiritual journeys. When your children are small, having them believe what you believe is natural. It gives them security and roots in a system of values. Treat this time as precious and let them see the glory of God through you. Bring God into your daily conversation - from pointing out a beautiful cloud in the sky to someone you know who was healed from a terrible disease. Pray with and for them.

As they get older, maybe once they hit the teenage years, they will need and want to make those beliefs their own – or not.  Questioning is natural, normal and even important. I continually pray that living the best Christian lives we can; looking to God for help, solace, answers and direction and letting our children see my husband and me doing these things will inspire them to seek out answers for themselves once they leave home. We have always tried to let our children see and experience those times when we saw God at work in our lives and in others’. We feel that we gave our boys and girl a firm foundation and now they must find out what they truly believe for themselves.

We tried to make our children’s church experience a positive one.  Some things were a given, others were their choice. For instance, we required attendance on Sunday mornings but made going to Youth Group their choice.  Sunday mornings, it was not a problem; it is just what we did, no question about it.  I think this is actually easier with lots of kids than with just one.  We felt that Youth Group should be a choice and if it was fun, they would want to go.  They usually did not want to go, for whatever reason. The boys were excited to be acolytes because they got to light candles and blow them out. They also saw, as the goal, the chance to be a thurifer, which is the guy or girl who gets to swing around a ball with hot coals and incense in it, with steam pouring out. Plus, acolyting was more fun than being bored sitting in the pew. We made a big deal of how they were serving the Lord – a good thing. Outside influences can be extremely powerful as well.  Our boys went to Camp Rockmont in Black Mountain, NC for years and the Christian formation there, from Godly men and cool Christian college kids, made a huge impact.  Young Life came a critical time for them as well.

As your children grow up, you undoubtedly will be faced with tough situations.  Your teenagers may argue that God is just a crutch for weak people or that their friend said…….   Listen. Love your kids no matter what they believe to be true. Help them to tease out answers to difficult questions. Recall your own times of doubt. Recognize that a lack of faith might be temporary, a stage, a healthy questioning or it may be who they truly are for a period. Showing disappointment that they don’t believe exactly what you believe is not going to make them take up the cross – probably the opposite.  Listen and try to understand where they are coming from and know that developing a strong belief system – in anything – takes a long time and there are a lot of twists and turns along the way.  And remember that nothing is worth losing your kids over and your loving,accepting attitude may be just the thing that makes them want to be just like you and therefore explore your beliefs in depth.

OBSESSIONS

My main OBSESSIONS: Our sons: John, Philip, Edward and William, My husband Jay, Our niece/daughter Olivia.  Missing is my precious daughter-in-law, Hannah (her plane was canceled for this gathering when I graduated from nursing school).

Those of you who know me know that I sometimes I get so excited about something that I pretty much drive everyone else crazy.  I hate to use the word “obsessed” but it probably fits.  I want everyone to love said “thing” as much as I do!  Last year, it was a video of the Pentatonix (an acapella group) singing, “Mary, Did You Know?” I played it constantly – made everyone I know watch it – a particular fun memory is driving my kids and their GFs/wife home from a wedding last December, blasting this song and having everyone join in as we sang all the way home.  Mary, Did You Know? is actually my ringtone at the moment! I know Christmas is long past, but I can’t give it up. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifCWN5pJGIE)

Another obsession of mine is children’s books. I love reading them, I love the illustrations, I love just the thought of sharing them with my yet unborn grandchildren. For a long time, I thought that I shouldn’t spend money on children’s books with no children to whom I could read them (that grammar sounded very strange but I think it might be right).  But I got over that – I’m building a library! One of my favorites is The Day the Crayons Quit, by Daywalt and Jeffers. I’m not even sure that kids would enjoy it that much – because there is too much copy on a page -but for Mom, it is adorable, clever and just plain fun.

Back to the point, my current obsession is Jennie Allen’s book Anything. This is the third blog post about it!  It is that good! She has so many cool things to say that make so much sense.  The main premise of her book is the idea of praying to God that you will do Anything for Him and then see what happens.  It just so happens that when Jay and I found ourselves with an empty nest, when William left for college in 2007, and we were not feeling all that thrilled with the sudden quiet, we prayed this very prayer.  We were surrendering to God and prayed that we would go anywhere, do anything, give up anything – He just needed to lead us and He needed to speak loudly and clearly enough for us to hear Him and recognize His voice.

Now, I know this is sounding crazy to those reading this who are not Christians. And I really want this blog to be relevant to everyone so I kind of try to avoid the Jesus-speak but I do believe that God is real and can fill us up and lead us every moment of the day. I will write in another post exactly why I feel that all of the God-faith-Jesus stuff is true.

Don’t you find that looking back on your life things seem so clear that you wonder why you didn’t “get” it at the time?  As I look back on the few years after Jay and I prayed that prayer, this is what I see.  We took in our niece and guided and loved on her for four years and now she is a happy freshman in college.  Jay wrote a book (!), Men in the Church, Is there a Future?, and I became a Registered Nurse at 59-years-old.  Wow!  That prayer has power.  It doesn’t mean God is going to lead you to sell your house and all your belongings to move and be a missionary to a lost aboriginal tribe (it might but I would venture to say usually not). It means if you allow God in, He will lead you to amazing places – maybe not easy but SO worth it.  I wanted to quit nursing school just about every day.  It was hard, it was stressful, it was NOT fun. I called my sister constantly to whine and complain.  But….I felt God, for some unknown reason, wanted me to be a nurse. He wanted to hone my nurturing tendendencies to have professional credibility. I am still not sure why. But that doesn’t matter so much. In nursing school, I had a million people ask me why? Why do you want to be a nurse? Why at your age are you doing this? Why would you choose to do something so hard?  Why?  Why?  Why? I will tell you….because I felt it is what God wanted me to do.  I get it – that sounds so weird to most of you. I also get that most people can’t afford to just do what they feel lead to.  I am blessed that I could go to school and not have to work for a paycheck. But God is not going to let you starve. And, let me tell you, there is no better feeling than doing what you feel God wants you to do.

I asked my niece (another one) who is a young mother of two adorable kids, if she had read Anything yet.  She said she had it on her bedside table but she was scared to read it.  She likes her sweet life in a beautiful home in a sweet neighborhood outside Columbus, Ohio.  She loves taking care of her little ones and working on an amazing yearly fund raiser to give foster children Christmas presents (the Cole Collection on FB). She doesn’t want to give God the chance to tell her to give it all up. But here’s the thing. God will take your good life and make it amazing.

So, here, now, is God at work. There was a quote in Jennie’s book that I have been searching for, so I could share it with you, for three days!  I was so frustrated, I was starting to think God wanted me to use something else.  So, I just this second picked up the book to share the “something else” and there was the quote I had wanted. Coincidence? Perhaps. But I think God just winked at me.

C.S. Lewis has our bottom line today:

“Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.”      

Don’t be “moderate” ladies – how boring!  Jennie Allen says this about her decision to pray the Anything prayer:

“I originally thought we were going to have to be such martyrs, to suffer for Christ and pour out our lives unto death. I was wrong. ….We were just following an all-knowing God whom we completely trusted. And it was all turning out to be fun and full of life and joy.”

MEANINGFUL INTENSITY (and ice cream)

In lieu of my devotionals, I am reading a Christian book in the mornings and I am reading a really good one that is making me think of it all day long.  It is called Anything, by Jennie Allen.  Jennie is talking about her first date with a guy who became her husband.  Over dinner, this cute boy she has just met asks her a bold question: “What do you want most out of life?”  I will tell you her answer in a sec.

I was so fascinated by this question that I asked it of those at our dinner table last night and it stimulated a deep, heartfelt discussion. Of course, everyone’s dinner table is composed of lots of different characters but we had my husband, two of our grown sons and a 24 year old girlfriend (the one who went to the Influence conference with me).  We were waiting while Jay whipped up a little dessert for us, and I was thinking this question might be too “deep” and everyone might be too tired (or tipsy) to answer seriously but as usual I was surprised.

They pressured me to go first. One said “…and you can’t answer JESUS!”  Haha….they all know Jesus is the answer for me most of the time!  Anyway, I said, “I want to make a positive difference to someone every day (for God).”  William chimed in that I could never be sick!  A therapist once used the term “meaningful intensity”  with me. She said that raising children has deep "meaningful intensity" and there is really nothing else that can give you that, at least not to that degree.  So when your kids are raised and successfully out the door, you might miss that meaningful intensity.  I realized at the time that I had sort of become addicted to meaningful intensity and I continue to spend time looking for ways to satisfy that urging.

Back to the dinner table, our older son said, “I want to leave a legacy that I did a good job with balance. Balancing my family life and my work life. I also want to continue to create a business with integrity and where my employees feel valued and mentored.” Onto the youngest, who most often is the one who makes us laugh, who said, with uncharacteristic seriousness, “I want a lot of people at my funeral. I want to connect with people.”  Carolyn said, “I really want to feel secure and self-confident that whatever I am doing feels right and I feel good about it.” Thoughtful discussion surrounded each response.

My husband finally returned with our tin roofs* (yum). We didn’t know if he had been listening or not. He had to ask me to repeat the question and then he said without hesitation, “…you know that picture of all of us on the front steps we took in July? There’s no question that that is what I most want – to have a happy, healthy loving family.” That called for a “Cheers!”

So back to Jennie Allen, her response to her soon-to-be-husband was, “I just don’t want to be normal.” You’ll have to pick up her book to see what she meant by that.

Bottom line: This life may seem long but compared to eternity, it is the blink of an eye. Think about what you want most in life and get after it!

*TIN ROOF

Scoop of vanilla ice cream

Redskin peanuts

Hershey’s chocolate syrup

(a delicious standby dessert – keep ingredients on hand!)

Jennie's book.  I am about to finish it and I can't recommend it highly enough.  I'm going to buy 10 copies and give them out!