Reprogramming the Kidbots

I often say that when the kids come home from an extended stay at the other parents' house, we spend a week reprogramming them. While I understand we aren't raising little kidbots, sometimes it feels like while they are gone, they are completely rewired.

More often than not, they come home disrespectful, argumentative, and angry. After a week or two of Rock Star style fun they come home to their boring old lives full of rules and chores and an expectation of respect for everyone and everything around them.

I guess I was raised in the old school style where kids used simple manners (please, thank you, yes ma'am and I'm sorry). I feel like each person in the household pitching in on chores allows us to live in a clean home where company can visit anytime as well as teach valuable life lesson for the future where mom no longer does their laundry, washes their dishes, or finds their shoes. I know that the word "no" doesn't win me popularity points but teaches my children 1) I'm in control and 2) if they want it bad enough, they should work for it and 3) we don't always get what we want and that's ok; life doesn't end with the word "no".

This is where I come to terms, however, with the statement - My house, my rules. I do pray though that these little lesson we try to instill in our home are taken out of it in some little way and as the years pass they will want to embrace the values we are trying to teach.