A Heavenly Sabbath? I Think Not!

Yesterday I was hoping for the idyllic Sabbath reverence from my children. This usually isn't very hard to achieve either. Usually they are remarkably well-behaved at church, and we are working on improving their behavior at home. But yesterday...well, instead I was awarded with a scene straight out of Nanny 911 (before Nanny Intervention, that is).

It all began when we tried to find seats at Stake Conference. Because they were calling a new stake president and Elder Holland would be officiating, the outgoing stake presidency decided to broadcast the conference in every room in the stake center and also in the local high school auditorium across the street. Of course by the time we arrived the stake center was overflowing and only place we could find seats was at the high school (and we were early). And the only seats available at the high school were the ones on the back row at the top of the stairs.

So, of course, most of my kids spent the entire 2 hours escaping into the aisles. They ran up and down, pushed each other to get out and fought over whose turn it was to speed down the steps and hop back up them. When we weren't scolding them for being out of their seats, we were telling them to keep their voices down. Ammon and Ben couldn't keep their hands to themselves (in their opinion tickling each other was a great way to pass the time). And all of them had to go to the bathroom more times than I thought was humanly possible. I finally took the younger kids out to the car to wait because they were so disruptive that no one near us could focus on Elder Holland's remarks.

After Church wasn't any better. I sent all the children to their rooms, hoping they would take a nap and give me some peace and quiet. But they wailed for nearly an hour before calming down. Once I did let them out of their rooms, they began to pick on each other and fight over toys. At one point I had Grace crying in my arms, Elizabeth hanging on one leg as she wailed, Daniel pushing on my other leg as he screamed at me in anger and Ben crying in frustration in the other room. (At least Ammon was blissfully silent during this particular crisis.)

Somehow we managed to get through to day without any broken bones, but I doubt our Spirits fared as well. So I made a Family Ladder.

The Family Ladder consisted of 6 rungs, numbered 0-5. One the left side of each rung was a list of Behavior Expected for that level, and on the right was a list of Privileges Earned. We started with the basic behavior for Level 1 (kids dressed and minding their own business) and worked our way up to Level 5 (obeying instantly and doing all work without being asked). Level 0 was the level for negative behavior (like whining, arguing, complaining, hitting, etc.) and the "privilege earned" was extra or nasty chores--one for each level they had dropped. Once the extra chores were completed, the child could climb the ladder back to where they had been before the infraction.

I introduced the Family Ladder right before dinner. The change was instantaneous. Suddenly my children were begging to be assigned their chores. They were asking each other what they could do to help. They were obeying instantly!

HALLELUJAH!

The Family Ladder continues to help today as well. I know that soon it will lose its newness and they won't be so enthusiastic. But at least I can get a few days of peace. Hey, maybe it will still be working when next Sunday rolls around. Oh, I do hope so.