Behaviour charts, for them, me, him and Them.

After trying a variety of behavioural techniques on daughter and son I have settled on the oldest and best: bribery. Here's some I tried earlier.
Naughty Step. Son notably fell asleep on it, daughter would do the naughty thing then take herself off to it, humming. Fail.

• Sticker chart: son became so focused on gaining stickers he would do something nominally good, for a sticker, then have a paddy if refused, thus losing a sticker. Daughter merely sneaked downstairs and stole stickers for her own chart off of him, or other kids at playgroup. Fail.
• Removal of favourite toys for a pre-determined period. Son would spend the whole of the pre-determined period weeping, daughter would merely say that something else was her favourite toy, ad infinitum, until there were no toys left. Fail.
• Time out in room. Son would weep on the bed then fall asleep, waking and forget the naughtiness, or come downstairs immediately, saying sorry for no reason. Daughter  I once caught, through a gap in the door, making crying noises, to earn sympathy, whilst playing quite happily with her dollshouse. Fail.
• 1,2,3. This is where you are meant to use behavioural management techniques and warn the child before carrying through your punishment. It works with Year 9's. All it did with mine was make them realise they had two attempts to get the naughty thing done before being punished. Fail.

So, onto bribery. I have introduced the concept of pocket money. The alarming amount of 100 new pence a week. Which is like a MILLION when you are 5 and 3. And to earn this goodly amount, they must do the following.
Put dirty washing in the laundry basket.
Tidy their rooms at the end of the day.
Bring plates and cups to the sink.
Put their bikes and scooters in the shed.
AND: the clincher: not get more than 20 "bad" ticks, or they forfeit the pocket money. On the plus side, if they get more than 20 "good" ticks, they can get an extra 10p per 10 ticks.  We have the charts up.
We also have this chart up. As son points out, Daddy isn't particularly good at putting his dirty washing in the basket either.So he drew the chart you see here.

Which leads me to reflect that it is all the more important that the kids get to learn these helpful lifeskills, so that they don't turn into the sort of adult who lives in a cess pit of their own making until a girlfriend/boyfriend/mum comes along to tidy it up for them.

Thus far the bribery is working.

I'm tempted to send a similar chart to my local Council. Only with bigger demands that earn their right to get voted in again. Like, keep a bus service running maybe, or don't give yourself a whacking great payrise while you're cutting the arse off everything else. Unfortunately, bribery works all too well with this lot, and my paltry vote and quid won't go far. If I had a huge plot of land to develop, maybe......