@Cowboybob thank you

@Kathryn05 you're welcome

@isabelrider I agree. It was productive which was nice

@Kathryn05 during the long holidays, children often suffer due to the lack of routine. It sounds to me that you imposed routine and structure into the girls' summer.

@beckychandler Thanks Becky and it really did work out. The interesting part was that the kids were much less prone to getting into trouble during the week as they had less free time to find trouble. What did happen though was the kids never really learned that when I said 5 hours a week helping and volunteering I meant 5 hours!

@Kathryn05 excellent strategy ...so they needed no spanking at all during the whole summer season ? That's very impressive

@kuttya Oh they needed spankings sure they're not robots and they make mistakes. And at times the list of chores led to rebellion and plans subvert my authority but overall they were much better behaved this summer than the last one