Life Lessons

A while back we wanted to start teaching Emerson the value of saving money as well as teach her about responsiblity.  I found this great Melissa and Doug Responsiblity chart that lets you choose the responsiblities you want to work on and when they are done, Em is rewarded with a magnet.  The key with ours is Emerson only gets a magnet when she performs the task without being asked to do it...she is expected to do all of the tasks all the time but is rewarded when she does them on her own.  When she gets to 10 magnets, she gets $5.  Back in May she saw a "swimming" Ariel doll at Target that she wanted so badly.  I decided that was the prime time to implement the responsibility chart!  I explained to her how she would be able to make money and that when she had saved up $20, she could buy Ariel herself.  Given that it is now July, I was so worried that Ariel was no longer going to be there now that Em finally had her $20...not a lesson I was looking forward to tackling!  After Em got her final magnet for her $20 she packed her money in her princess purse and we headed out to shop.  Thankfully there was ONE Ariel left!!!  She was so proud!  She told every person who would listen in line about her Ariel and that she was getting it with HER money! 
I was beyond proud of the conversation we had on the way to the store.  Emerson told me that when we got home, she was going to pick some of her other Ariel dolls out to give to kids who don't have an Ariel.  Sometimes we wonder if we are getting through to our little ones on the important things...I could not be more proud of our sweet little princess!

She tends to get the most magnets for clearing her plate after dinner...don't be fooled by no magnets for "Showing Respect", we stopped giving magnets for that because 1) that is something we expect with or without rewards and 2) she got VERY carried away with the "Yes Ma'ams" when every one got a magnet!

All ready with her money in her princess purse.  Sister had to carry a purse too, complete with her sunglasses and music player!

One proud little girl!

She wanted another picture with her once we got her out of the box!