I think that every parent teaches their children in their own way. And every child needs to be taught in a different way. I tried to be the perfect mother and so I read many child-relationship books. I also learned from different activities around the communities we lived in. Here are some of the strange but suggested things I did.
Shopping: There are a couple things here. First, I often took my children out to the grocery stores on Saturdays. That was the day, and right around 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., that there were samples. We'd go to all the stores in the area (usually there were only about 3 to 5 stores in our area and the areas were pretty small) and often end up with mini-ice cream cones, some meat and cheese, a cookie, some sort of drink, and often a bit of cake or donut. I mean, we weren't going out for free meals, but it made my children associate shopping with something fun. And it gave us time out of the house so my husband had some time for himself. And it gave me a chance to get my kids and I doing something free but fun together. Second, I'd take my kids shopping when we didn't need anything. I know it sounds dumb, but what I'd do is load the kids up and then go to a store. We'd head into the store and I'd find a few things the kids liked -- cereal, crackers, fruit, whatever -- and put those things in the cart. Usually we'd be moving pretty slowly because my goal was not to shop, but to teach my children a lesson. Eventually one of the children would let out "He hit me" or some such remark. At that point I'd tell the children that I didn't NEED to buy the treats for them and we could leave right now if they didn't settle down. Of course, the kids wouldn't believe me so they'd continue to act up. And sure enough, we'd go out and the kids would be mad at each other because they didn't get their treat. It only took a few such trips for my children to realize it wasn't an empty threat and when I said it, they'd immediately behave. The key here was to go without a need, to find things the kids really wanted, and to only say once that we'd leave and then leave immediately if they acted up again. The flip side of this was that when they behaved we'd get the treats for them and they'd be rewarded for their good behavior.
Restaraunts: Because eating out is pretty expensive, I'd usually take my children to one of those buffet style restaraunts where we paid by the age of the child. We'd get one adult meal and then 5 meals that ranged from about $0.59 to $3.00. We'd go into the restaraunt and I'd get the kids settled at the table. Almost immediately I'd set off to get food. I'd have 5 plates at the table, one for each child, and one plate that I used to get the food. I'd start by getting something back to the table quickly. Usually I'd grab pizza or macaronni and cheese. Sometimes it was tater tots or mini corn dogs. But it was always something I could get quickly and then distribute to the children. Once they all had some food, I'd head back and get a bit of variety -- mashed potatoes and gravy, chicken, whatever they liked. I'd get that to the table and distribute it. Then I'd usually have a chance to get a few bites of food for myself. Most of the time it was food that I'd gotten for the children that was more than they wanted. Once the meal was done we'd clean up and get all the dishes stacked nicely with any garbage on top of them. And then I'd go off and get rice krispie bars, or pudding, or ice cream. That would be distributed and eaten and then we'd make sure everyone was happy and full. At that point, we'd head out. Almost every trip we had at least one couple stop us as we were leaving or come over to our table as they were leaving. They would tell us that when we came in they were sure that there would be noise and crying and they'd have to leave to get peace. But they were so amazed at how well-behaved the children were when I was gone from the table that they had to tell me. The thing that made this work was that the children had something they liked right from the beginning. When they were really hungry, right there at the beginning, I'd get the food back really quickly. Then, as they were just picking at their food, we wouldn't waste too much time. We'd stay as long as they were eating, but no longer. And they always knew that if we had to leave early, it was the treat part of the meal they'd miss. And because we'd practiced it, they believed me whenever I said we'd leave if they acted up.
Cleaning: My parents had an immaculate house -- cream carpets, cream with light furniture, no dust, and certainly no toys on the floors! I, on the other hand, accepted the fact that I had five children and there would almost always be toys out somewhere. So, we put all five children into one bedroom and had another that was a toy/play room. We generally had the children put away one set of toys before bringing out the other, but sometimes children were still playing with the first set of toys and others wanted the new toys out so it would back up a bit. Strangely enough, I found that having the kids go to the living room for just five minutes -- usually less -- allowed me to toss all the toys (literally ALL) into buckets, which we were using as toy boxes. Since the buckets didn't have tops, the kids could always see what was in there and pick out what they wanted to play with. And it didn't matter which bucket things went into. If the kids wanted things organized so it would be easier to find things, then they would have to organize them for themselves. As long as they were off the floor, I was satisfied. Oftentimes, so many toys were out that we'd call a halt to all playing and the kids would have to sit for a moment as I tossed all the toys into buckets and then we'd let them start all over. This became such a common occurance that we had kindergarten teachers telling us that there was a problem, but that it really couldn't be labelled. They'd tell the kids it was time to clean up from a project and my children would immediately find a chair and sit down quietly. But they couldn't get the children to pick toys up. I found it vastly amusing. The other thing about cleaning that I accepted was that a house didn't have to be spotless. Children have a great ability to spill, or drool, or spit-up, or chew on things. OK. Outside in the sandbox they were eating sand, dirt, bugs, etc. There's really no way to stop that from happening. And they pick up things from the ground everywhere and put them in their mouths. So, as long as my house was cleaner than the local sandbox or sidewalks, I was satisfied. There wasn't a lot of stress over cleaning that way.
Food/Meals: When I only had 2 children, we'd use high chairs and have family meals. But as we got to 4 and 5 children, it got to be more difficult. And a basic and unchangeable reason was simply the space involved in seating 7 people around a table. The solution was simple -- lose the table and chairs. We'd have them, but usually a meal would involve a pot, a piece of silverware, and a half-circle of children facing me. Let's just say the meal was macaronni and cheese, a favorite in my house. I'd make two boxes of pasta. Then I'd get the kids sitting down and start at the left edge of the circle. Bite of food, bit of food for the next, and then the next, etc. At the end of the line I'd just go back to child number one. If someone still had food in their mouth or wasn't paying attention, I'd skip over them. Usually the kids paid attention to what was going on. It only took a few missed bites and they'd perk up. And when a child was full they'd indicate that by saying, "May I be excused please?" My response was always, "Are you full" The purpose of the rule was to make the child think about their eating. Sometimes the kids would forget and just get up to leave. At that point, I'd specify their intent: "Are you finished or are you going to go potty." It would pull the child up and make them think. If they left because they were done, they couldn't come back. So if they were full, that was great. But if they thought maybe they would want more, they'd stay in the circle. In this way I made sure the children knew that they had enough food to satisfy their body's needs, but didn't have to stuff themselves. We NEVER had a meal and dessert at home at the same time. And the dessert was never conditioned about how much they ate at a meal. I didn't want to be teaching my children to stuff themselves past what they needed just to get more food. And I didn't want my children overeating just because they liked the taste of the sweets. But we always had some sort of sweet in the evening after supper. It was a wonderful bargaining chip -- if they kids truely misbehaved, we could always threaten no dessert. Again, my children were certain that if I said something, I'd follow through. One of the fun things we'd do is have dessert first. The kids never knew ahead of time when I'd do that. Usually I didn't know ahead of time. But I would say something like, "Now, if you don't eat all your ice cream, you won't be able to have a hamburger." The kids would giggle and love that. And by making the meal part a "treat" they'd always eat that.
There's so much more to get into, but I think that this is enough for one day. I know I can't write everything at once, but I can make a little dent each day.
Mittxe Community Member 
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