I was having a pancake with another mom this week, with our two littlest ones, and feeling a little guilty about swanning around in cafes when others were hard at work and busy at school. We talked, as moms do, about our kids, teaching them kindness, getting them to help around the house, bedtime struggles, and our challenges with getting them to listen, or even hear us! We vented our frustrations, and gained comfort from the shared experiences. And we exchanged ideas and tips and strategies. It was lovely!

Later in the week, a mom and I tried to have a glass of wine amidst interruptions from all four of our boys. Again we talked mostly about mom stuff like sibling rivalry, chores, house rules… We got particularly into how we struggle to organize our homes and the stubborn and insistent challenge of managing the kid stuff. (The stuff that tends to explode and invade every space in your home. The stuff that manages to lose important pieces in obscure places, rendering the game or toy unusable, so that it becomes a hideous monolithic sculpture in your living room. The stuff that defies organization, however many bins, boxes or shelves you acquire. The stuff that harbors old lunches and sweaty socks for weeks before disgorging the ripe contents in the middle of the kitchen as you’re attempting to cook for guests.) This particular line of conversation was less strategic and more cathartic. We more or less agreed that it’s an insurmountable problem, contrary to what all those ‘super’ mom blogs say about ‘easy’ organizing tips. The thing is, no matter how organized you are or how good your system is, there are real human children involved here! Again I felt a twang of guilt thinking of my husband working away diligently while I was sipping wine, eating chocolate covered strawberries and having a good chat with a friend.

By the weekend, we were socializing with other families, again exchanging ideas, experiences, and strategies for managing family life and work. It was only in the shower at the end of a long day, at the end of the week, that it hit me – these are very important business meetings for moms. We need this exchange of ideas to stimulate us and get our parent juices flowing. We need to see other people’s children in action to normalize the behavior of our own offspring. We need to hear what other families are doing at dinner time, bedtime, or before school so that can try new things, steal a trick, raise our game.  We need to vent to others who understand our experience so that we don’t take our frustrations out on our children. These meetings challenge us to be better parents, by making us think. And they remind us that we are not alone.

I also realized that almost no one thinks they’re doing a great job as a parent. Or rather, we are all doing our best, but we beat ourselves up about what we are not doing, or what we don’t think we’re doing well enough. These meetings show us that we are not the worst parents in the world, even though many us feel that way, and we are better at some things and not so great at others, because we are all human! I asked some other moms this week about chores or jobs at home, because it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, and they all said something about how they’re not good about that. Who is making them feel bad? What are they not doing that worries them? Why are they not patting themselves on the back for healthy, happy children who are still alive at the end of each day? This is another reason these meetings are important – so that we can pat each other on the back and compliment each other for the brilliant idea that has been shared, or the sweetness of the toddler who shared a toy, or the cool organization of the art supplies. We do so many miraculous things as parents all day, and all night, every day and every night, without really a break in sight, and yet we always expect more and better of ourselves. How is this sustainable? No other job is so relentless. And no other job provides so little in the way of performance appraisals praising areas of strength and excellent achievement, and bringing attention to areas for growth. (I have to thank my mom for doing some of this – for caring enough and knowing enough to notice when I’m doing great and when I need some reminders.)

So if I may, I’d like to share an idea I garnered from my conversations this week, which I am excited to try. My husband and I have been talking a lot about this issue of consequences, faced with the fact that the kids often don’t care. If you throw that again, I’m taking that toy away. Well, so many others to play with, so who cares. If you kick your brother again, we are going to take a break in the other room. Well then I get you to myself for a minute, so that’s fine with me. My husband keeps saying we should use time outs because every body does that, but neither of us really knows how or why they work, nor do we really believe that withdrawing from the kids, or isolating them, will help them learn how to be kind, respectful people. So we have been coming up empty handed. Enter the new idea of the day… I’ll call them ‘team jars’ for now. Our family talks a lot about being a team, and how we all need to be part of the team, and do our part in the team. We try to avoid black and white language like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or ‘nice’ and ‘naughty’ and talk about making choices and team work. So hence the name ‘team jars’.

The idea is to have a jar – I think we’ll start with half pint mason jars – which each child can fill with tokens for acts of kindness, respect, helpfulness and responsiveness. For example, bringing an ice pack to your brother when he hurts himself, offering a guest a drink, helping your mom set the table, or doing what you’re asked right away (without several increasingly irate reminders from your parents or increasingly desperate pleas from your brother to let him go). We still need to figure out exactly what qualifies and probably have guidelines written down somewhere, because my kids are sticklers that way. We also need to specify how may tokens a particular action merits. My oldest already started advocating for 2 tokens for some behaviors when I mentioned the idea to him, so we’ll have to be very specific to avoid conflict. So, when the jar is full, the child is entitled to a one-on-one ‘date’ with mom or dad to go and get ice-cream, or something along those lines. The main idea is that they get special, positive, one-on-one time with a parent. And that we refocus, as a family, on behaviors and actions that makes us an awesome team, rather than all the attention going to the things that bring us down.

So, the little animal tokens ( found these when searching for ‘counting bears’ on Amazon ) have arrived, the kids are excited about this new idea, the parents are optimistic about the benefits of focusing on positives, and we are ready to try something new! I’ll keep you posted… and I’d love to hear if you’ve tried something similar, or other tips for motivating kids… And I’ll keep talking to other moms and parents, exchanging ideas, sharing views, providing support and comfort. And I’ll try to remember that we are all human and keep learning and practicing how to be a parent.