Those Were The Rules

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This month the Not Just A Mom Link-up question is about our house rules, and I think I have a lot fewer rules now than I did when I had four young kids underfoot and we were homeschooling! I feel like I was never as consistent as I should have been in enforcing those rules though. Well, I'm going to try to remember some of the rules we had then, and see if I can summarize some house rules I have now.

As I was homeschooling four kids, we had to have some basic ground rules just to get through an average day. There was no school bus to catch, so I didn't strictly enforce rules about what time to get up, what time to go to bed, or keeping track of school lunches and activities. For a time I actually had The Rules posted in the hallway along with a loose schedule, and we all signed them, like a contract. The kids were involved in negotiating and agreeing upon these rules at the beginning of the school year and there were some clearly defined consequences that all agreed to on the contract, so I didn't have to think up a consequence and nobody could accuse me of being 'unfair'. These rules included things like:

• Be on time for school.
• Everyone is responsible for their own stuff and to clean up their own mess.
• Entertainment (TV, computer, video games, etc) is a privilege, not a right; and is allowed only if schoolwork and chores are done. And nobody was allowed to hog the TV or whatever either - they had to share.
• The kids were expected to date all their schoolwork and when they were old enough, to keep track of their own assignments and due dates.

One rule that was sort of specific to our home was that I did not allow doors to be slammed or pounded on, and as the boys shared rooms, I did not allow them to lock their roommate out of the room! If their disputes escalated to slamming doors, locked doors, and siblings pounding on doors, I would go upstairs with a screwdriver and take the bedroom door off its hinges and they would have to go for a couple of days without a door. I never had to say anything about this, other than, "If you can't use the door as God intended, you don't get to have a door." It was actually rather funny, but I made my point and didn't have to do any yelling or lecturing. 

When I was called on to settle a dispute between them, I sometimes got so frustrated with them interrupting each other and muddying the whole situation that I resorted to treating it like a Judge Judy courtroom, calling it "contempt of court" if they interrupted or argued when the other party in the case was giving testimony. The fine for being held in contempt was usually push-ups or standing in a corner, so they caught on pretty quickly that each witness would get a chance to tell their story and Judge Mum would make a fair ruling.

Yes, once they were teens and off with friends, I always had the standard rules about keeping parents informed about where they were, what they were doing and with whom, and when they could be expected home. This continued once they were over eighteen but still living at home, because it's just courteous to let your housemates know whether you'll be home for dinner or for the night. 

Our kids were expected to pay "rent" once they were out of school, and to pay their share of auto insurance and cellphone bills on our household plans. 

Now that it's just me and my husband, it feels like we don't have any rules at all! But we still keep to many of those guidelines we had for our kids because they made responsibility and courtesy a habit. Honestly, I wish I had someone I could assign some of the chores to!

This post will be linked up with the Not Just A Mom Link-up hosted by Adrienne, Dara, Jen, Joanne, Lauren, and Sarah.

Although I didn't use the prompt for the day, this post is part of the Write 28 Days Blogging Challenge hosted by Anita Ojeda because I did indeed "Write Something Somewhere". Find all my posts for the 2023 challenge here: Write Something Somewhere

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