House Rules

Tonight, the boys and I worked on the house rules. I am hoping this will make them feel more invested and follow what I expect of them. I thought 20 seemed like a reasonable number - enough to cover the bases, not too many to seem overwhelming. Should you be interested, here is the list.

Family House Rules
1. Always tell the truth.
2. No being sneaky.
3. No teasing. Be respectful of your brothers and any guests who are here.
4. No punching, hitting, tattle-taling or pushing.
5. Share your toys.
6. No coming down stairs without first brushing your teeth.
7. Keep the cars clean. When you get out of the car, bring your belongings with you.
8. When you come in from school, hang up your jacket & backpack, bring out your folder & lunchbox
9. When you are done eating, put your plate in the sink.
10. You eat your dinner and you do not complain about what you are served. Dessert will not be served every night. But if we do have it and you do not eat all of your dinner, you do not get dessert.
11. If it is a nice day, play outside as much as possible.
12. Video games can be played for no more than 30 minutes a day. You must first read for 15 minutes that day.
13. No complaining when you have to take a bath or a shower.
14. No complaining when it is time to wake up or to go to bed.
15. You make a mess, you clean it up. No going to bed with messes in the playroom or in your bedroom. This includes putting your clothes in the hamper.
16. Put the video game cases and controllers back when you finish playing.
17. No answering the phone.
18. If mommy or daddy are on the phone, do not bother them unless it is an emergency.
19. One vitamin per day and no more than that.
20. If you are assigned to do a job, you do it without complaining.


More interesting, however, are the rules that I could have put on the list - they were suggested by one or more of the children - but I declined to add them. In retrospect, I should probably rethink my 20 rule limit and add these..

1. No farting at dinner.
2. No showing off my weenie to by brother.
3. No farting when we're in the bathtub together.
4. No peeing on my brother.
5. No laughing so hard water comes out of your nose. (Note: this happened after rejected rule #1 was suggested. Thank you, Colin.)
6. If you get a black eye, keep hurting yourself until it's really obvious.
7. No punching the Easter Bunny.
8. Lick the toilet water when you are thirsty. (Um, we are clean around here but not that clean. Ick, ick, ick.)
9. No getting up and breakdancing during dinner. (Again, this would actually probably be quite valuable as it happens nearly every night.)
10. No jumping out the window.