Hard Lesson To Learn

Well my kids just had to learn a lesson the hard way. It was a hard one to teach too. We were supposed to pick up a puppy tomorrow but now we are not. The boys have had a very hard time cleaning their room for the past four or five months. It has been a huge battle. We have tried everything to get the point across to these boys that when you make the mess you MUST clean it up. Instead thy have spent the time fighting and getting in trouble for said fighting. I have tried incentives? I have tried throwing toys in a bin that didn't get picked up and making them work to get them back, I have tried throwing toys away, and so many other things. Nothing has worked and they are taking forever to get the job done. Now when I say forever I am not just talking about thirty min or an hour, I am talking between three and five hours to clean their room.  This leads to much frustration on my part and I feel like I never handle it right. So tonight Shawn and I talked to the boys about responsibility. We talked about how their room getting cleaned was their responsibility. They were not living up to their responsibilities. Shawn then told them we were no longer getting a dog until they could show us they could handle the responsibility of cleaning their room with out me constantly hounding them to get it done and without the fighting. We may never get a dog at the rate they are going but hopefully they will get the hang of what we are trying to teach soon. 

Ape