Love Jar

ARG!!  

My kids are driving me crazy with the constant fighting, biting, kicking, hitting, pinching, tattling... you get the picture.  

Summer is great, because we all get to hang out together and do fun things, but it is also a time of rediscovering sibling (and parental) dynamics!  

My kids haven't spent this much time together in a year, 

since Aria started Kindergarten!  

And now they're together from morning to night.  

So what's a mom supposed to do about it?  

I didn't really sign up to be a peacekeeper this summer!

Last summer on Pinterest I saw lots of ideas about the "I'm Bored" jar, and I thought that's a nice idea, but I don't hear "I'm bored" very often (probably because my kids are too young to be familiar with that concept, thank goodness!).  But it occurred to me that that idea could work as a "discipline" method, or a way of solving the constant bickering!  

So we made a LOVE jar.

Its chalk full of ways to change gears from fighting to loving (and forgiving). 

A lot of the time kids just need to have their focus shifted if they aren't getting along.  So, we made the list together, and each time I hear the "He bit me", "She punched me", etc. they have to pull a slip out of the jar and do what it says.  I tried to keep things simple because my kids are 3 and 6 years old.  As well, I tried to keep the activities to be self-directed (so I can keep doing whatever I'm working on, as the whining usually starts when I'm in the middle of something!), and a good mix of fun ideas, loving ideas, and some discipline ideas... to keep them on their toes!

Here's a list of what we included:

Hug for one minute

Play badminton

Jump through a sprinkler holding hands

Make a waterslide together, and take turns using it

Clean up Roscoe's room

Clean up Aria's room

Brush the dog

Play Ring Around the Rosie

Hug for two minutes

Time out for two minutes

 Give a high five

Sing "Where is Thumbkin"

Sing "Johnny Whoops"
Sing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm"

Dance party for one minute

Say 5 nice things that you like about each other

Pray for each other

 

Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love.

John 13:34