bribery...

I am willing to openly admit that I am not above bribing my children to accomplish a task.

With Sailor we have found that no amount of bribery would get her to clean her room. She is a pack rat to an extreme extent and will not part with anything. All she comes in contact with is a treasure of untold value, or at least she thinks.

In the past Vanz or I would go in and purge for her. Most of the time she wouldn't realize what we had done. She was so mistified by the fact that her room was clean that we could throw or give away just about anything without her being the wiser.

As she has gotten older, I have decided she is well over the appropriate age to be able to accomplish the task of cleaning her room. We have offered money, fun activities, reward box prizes, punishments, you name it.

Nothing has worked.

Since I gave up the room cleaning bribery my kids had become obsessed with Lalaloopsy dolls. I cannot really blame them. They are pretty cute. Sailor had a bunch of the mini dolls and one day we were looking at them and Hobie saw that they had a pirate doll and would not stop talking about getting a "pirate ya ya woopsy."

He has been going back and forth on potty training attempts and I though maybe that would be the thing that did it. So I bought it and we set it on the potty for him to look at and remind him that as soon as he used it, he would get the pirate doll.

This infuriated Sailor. She wanted a new Lalaloopsy doll too. So, I made a bargain with her as well, clean your room and KEEP IT CLEAN for one whole week and she would get a new Lalaloopsy too. I bought the doll and set the box on her dresser for her to look at and remind her of her task.

And she did it!

She made her bed every morning and made sure her room was tidy before she went to bed. It was a La la miracle. A week later I let her open the box and get her new doll.

Miss Pillow Featherbed

Sailor and her "reward"

Hobie on the other hand could not be bribed the entire two weeks the pirate sat waiting for him to complete his task, however once he saw Sailor got her new doll...within an hour, he had used the potty and got to open his own doll too. It was a double la la miracle!

Current bribery status- Sailor's room has never been messier and we will be starting a new bribe this week with Squinkies. Hobie thinks peeing on the floor is much easier than using the potty. Since we are getting new carpet this week, I think he wins and the diapers will still find their rightful place in my Costco shopping cart for a while longer.