It worked! When I followed the advice from Jessie Wise’s article, it worked!
I sat down with my gradeschoolers two days ago and told them how upsetting it was to me when they whined at chore time or schoolwork time. I basically told them: “If anyone whines when I ask them to do their schoolwork or chores, they will have to do DOUBLE the assignments or DOUBLE the chores. If you whine or complain when asked to clean your room or eat your vegetables, you will then be given TWO rooms to clean or TWO servings of vegetables to eat. Okay?”
“Yes, Mommy” they all answered with angelic voices–of course no one dared to complain after hearing what happens to complainers from now on!
It has been two days now and so far not a whimper at choretime or schoolwork time. So far so good! 
"La donna è mobile" means "woman is fickle" in Italian. This is the blog of one very fickle, super-busy gradschooling mother of five. I blog to share what I'm glad I learned and want others to know.
I'm just thrilled with the way this series of books ended! Call me old-fashioned, but pro-family values and pro-abstinence (before marriage) in teen fiction always make for a pleasant and delightful read!
