by Mitzi Saltsman

Created on: April 21, 2009

Tips for managing your children for managing your children

Many of the problem that are encounter with children can be caught ahead of time and dealt with using a simple system. Instead of having a big fight every time you get to the car over who was going to sit up front, or who gets to go first, or who sits where at the dinner table or any number of other "everyday" hassles, be prepared with a plan.

Yelling, "I was here first!", "Shotgun", or "Move your feet, you lose your seat." "I did it last time." or just wresting or bullying to see who gets to the front seat first works in some families. By the time we had two children who could talk and walk, I knew it wasn't going to work for us.

Fortunately, we ended up with a nice, even family of children. We have two boys and two girls. Their birthdays are on two even dates and two odd dates. The oldest boy and the youngest girl have odd birthdays and the oldest girl and our youngest son have even birthdays, so we devised a simple plan that didn't take a multitude of charts or records for keeping track.

The dinner table isn't an issue for some families, but it was at ours. I always sat on my husbands right and one of the kids wanted to sit next to me. I always thought it was because they loved me, but I think it's because I passed the food and whoever sat there got served first. However,...we did write each child's name on a calendar so we would know "who's" day it was to sit next me. Even if we missed a day because of being gone, or any other reason, the calendar was never wrong! Then, if it was one of the girl's day to sit next to me, the other girl got to sit next to Dad. The other two would sit at the other end of the table to complete our circle.
In the car, the problem always took care of itself (until they started through Driver's Ed.). It all depended on the date. If it was an odd dated day, say the 3rd, one odd child (they loved being called that!) sat up front going and they other odd child sat up front coming home.
This worked so well, we started using for any issue that took "turns". Whatever the issue, they could decide who did what. It was determined by an odd date or an even date. Who's day is it to do dishes, or take out the trash or whatever job had to be rotated fell in line easily enough, but if we missed a day or someone forgot who did it the last time, we just went back to the odd/even days. It was great on vacations because two of the kids were special and got to pick the restaurant or anything else we decided for a whole day. Even getting to pick a movie or game or TV show is made more simple with the system.

This worked especially well when we had two children working together. Our oldest two and the youngest two had opposite birthdays so the system always paired one boy and one girl together and one of the older children, with one of the younger. If the odd children were cleaning the basement, the even children could be picking up the living room. It saved a lot of fussing because the system was fair. They had plenty of other things to fight over, but "who's turn" wasn't one of them. Since it was all known ahead of time, they weren't angry or disappointed by not getting their own way.

* If your children's birthdays are not so neatly organized, simply use their birth order. The oldest is always 1. the next is 2. and so on. You will still end up with odd and even children. I wouldn't suggest just designating one of them an odd child!
*When our oldest left home and we were down to three, it was a little tougher to manage. We still relied on the calendar to tell us whose day it was but instead of trading off going and coming home, it was their turn or responsibility for the whole day.

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