It’s the summertime and my children are staying up until midnight, skipping meals (if they sleep through it), and that equals arguing. And it’s the same argument every time: “She’s on the [insert TV/Computer/device] without doing her chores first!” And they wouldn’t care except they did their chores so to be fair they need to tattle on their sister.
Other than getting them back to normal sleep patterns and feeding them (I skip fixing breakfast, because they are plenty old enough to fend for themselves.) I’m not sure what else to do. The rule at our house in the summer is 1/2 hr of practicing and 1/2 hr of chores before screen time each day. Chores are free form, but maybe that should change because the house doesn’t seem to get any messier, but it really doesn’t get any cleaner either.
I could farm the children out to the neighbors, then the tattling would go away because they can’t see each other. Or send the little ones to a labor camp in Siberia, then the 1/2 hr of chores would seem easy. “Thirty minutes of chores, I can do that before waking up!” But the real solution is shipping them off to Grandma’s, where they only have cable TV and a computer and chores are something their parents used to do back in the good ‘ole days.
Learning to get along is something I am trying to teach my children now at a young age. I am very excited whenever they do play nicely together. Fostering communication and cooperation is important and usually happens better when screen time is limited. We got some cheap napkins from Walmart that have ice breakers on them so that our children will talk to teach other. Each child gets to ask someone the question on their napkin or something else. These questions foster conversation and understanding.
For cleaning the house, have a check list of what needs to be done on the fridge or some where prominent in the house, so many checks equals so much screen time etc.
When the fighting in our home gets climatic, all the screens go off. We take time to pray, go outside, get out of the house, read scriptures, or have a cuddle fest on the couch with some good books. I don’t know what works for teenagers but this helps with my younger ones. Please post what works best for yours to help me prep for the future.