A Rachel, Mom and Dad Story

Rachel has never been very good at doing any chores at all. She is now four and a half and I really think she should be taking more responsibility in cleaning up her own messes. What that really means is that I have officially declared war with Rachel. Everyday, I ask Rachel either to pick up her crayons, her toys, or her books. This means that I ask her nicely to do it about five times over about a half an hour. Since she rarely picks up in that period of time, I begin to threaten her. She is threatened with a spank, or with being sent to bed early. I will give her the threat about 5 times over another 15 minutes. If she has not gotten to work by then, she gets the threatened punishment. Yesterday, Rachel got to ten time over about 45 minutes. I was busy making dinner and asked John to give Rachel the spank. John said he would and went over to Rachel and said that Mom said he had to give her a spank. The next thing I heard was Rachel saying, "Thank you, Dad. I love you Dad." I asked John if he had spanked her and he said that he had and that the thank you and I love you was her response to the spank. I do not think Rachel picked up at all last night. I definitely lost the battle yesterday!