Recently I made a mistake. I let Alex have some itunes purchases for cleaning her room. Or…… I linked compliance that day, to reward.
In the immortal words of Julia Roberts, Pretty Woman “Big mistake! Huge!”
Next time she needed to clean her room she said ‘can I have some itunes’ I considered and whilst doing some work, on the phone, I wrote a cryptic message:
Clean room = happy Mum = itunes.
As I have found out I should have written in a more academic and confusion reducing way:
My child could not understand that the instant appearance of the credit card did not coincide with the moment that the room looked ‘moderately’ clean. I suffered from Teenage Hell statement bombing….
“You said….”
“But you wrote…”
“It didn’t say that!”
“you never said I had to……”
“Why do you always change the rules?”
“Mum, that’s not what you said!”
HUFF, STOMP, SLAM!
[1] Clean room- constantly clean, not just done once with most of the stuff put into the wardrobe and the drawers crammed randomly with junk, the bed rising off the floor because of overstuffing.
[2] Happy Mum- contented, over a long period of time, the absence of ants, rubbish, general clutter and the drawers being accessible so items can be found by one drawer being opened.
[3] itunes- songs I approve of, without random sexual content and swear words; which work as a reward for the longevity of room cleanliness and all-round wonderfulness. Given as a reward for the clean room + happy Mum concept.
Oxford dictionary- Clean room (n) a place where bio-hazards are absent. Order reigns. Resembles page from New Zealand House and Garden. Could be used as show home. Smell very unlike old socks.
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