They figured it out!

We have something called the present closet.  I have probably written about it before.  The kids can earn coins and buy something out of the prize box.  They can also save up coins to buy a game for their leap pads.  They can also lose coins for poor behavior.   It is an evolving system and there are different rules for different kids.  Cecilia doesn’t participate yet.  Joel only gets to earn coins, but he doesn’t get them taken away for bad behavior.  He really doesn’t care about them until Vincent tries to cash in his coins.  Vincent totally understands the coin system and takes losing coins a little too well for my liking, but it is still effective.

At Easter I was getting a little grief because my family and Brad’s parents have figured out that some of the gifts they give the kids actually go straight to the prize box.  Everyone is very generous and sometimes there are too many gifts all at once so I just store them away in the present closet.  I used to bring them out on rainy days or when the kids were really good, but now they go in the prize box.  My grandma couldn’t believe that I was making my kids earn gifts that they had already received, and when you put it that way it does sound bad.  The beauty of it is that the kids are unaware of what I am up to.  I don't leave it to everyone else to fill out prize box, I also pick things up at the store for the prize box that I think the kids would like.

Now that my mom knows how this all works so for Joel’s birthday she specifically asked me “what can I get Joel that won’t go instantly into the prize box?”  They are catching on!