Naughty or Nice?

Yesterday I posted about our activity advent calendar that we have been doing. Its great! We have done some fun things this past week including make paper snowflakes, paper chains, watched Christmas movies, cleaned out old toys, and written letters to Santa. Today we are going to head out to pick out a toy for a needy child in our area. Fun stuff right? Well my girls think so, which is why I have discovered that this advent calendar has a dual purpose! DISCIPLINE!!

Let me tell you, my girls are great. I love them to pieces. But they hold onto the stereotype that siblings have to fight with each other. Especially as of late. Its been driving me nuts! The screaming at one another was getting unbearable and I could feel the grey hair infiltrating my 26 year old scalp. So, I told them that they would get one warning when they started fighting and if it continued after that, they would lose an advent activity. I don't care who started it or what the fight was about. The fighting needs to stop. So far, I have taken 2 activities from them. I chose at random which activities would go. I didn't even realize which ones I was taking out, until I unrolled them and read them. The girls still don't know which activities they will be missing out on. (Maybe I should tell them to make the punishment really stick? I don't know....) They have the chance to earn them back, assuming they can show me that they have learned how to get along with each other. The fights have definitely slowed down in frequency so this method seems to be working. I have also mentioned to them that Santa is not pleased to see them losing activities and that he told me that if they lose 5 activities before Christmas that he may have to reconsider their place on the nice list. This really got their attention. I'm hoping it works.

What about after Christmas, you ask? Well, if they start back up with the fighting then I'll just have to look at my discipline/behavior board for some more Pinspiration :)