King Poo Poo Award

Why is it as Americans we feel the obsessive need to have even our smallest accomplishments recognized. I spent four hours of my life I can never get back attending my oldest sons Future Farmers of America banquet last night. During the course of the evening a young lady was given an award for Fish Production. Yes, that is right, she has goldfish. She is a freshman in high school who was awarded a coveted prize for feeding her goldfish! SERIOUSLY! My niece accomplished this feat at a year old, granted she fed the fish Smarties but the concept was the same!

Believe me I am not pointing fingers. I am just as guilty as the next guy. I recently held a special "Potty Party" for my three year old son. I baked a cake...no kidding. I made him a crown and he got special prizes all day when he used the potty chair. At the end of the day he was given the "King Poo Poo" award.

For all my efforts he was not successful at potty training. He continued to poop in his pants on a daily basis. So I made it personal. Every time he pooped his pants he had to go get a penny from his piggy bank and put it in the diaper jar so that he could help pay for his pull-ups. On the other hand if he used the potty he got to take pennies out of the diaper jar and put them in his bank. It took two days for him to decide not to poop his pants!

There is a lesson to be learned here. Sometimes we have to do stuff just because it needs to be done and if we don't do it there is going to be an uncomfortable consequence. For example if you do not feed your fish , or choose to feed them Smarties, they will most likely die and you will be sad and probably fail your fish feeding class.

What kind of adults are we creating with all of this award giving? How often do you and I get a plaque for cleaning the bathroom..."We the Hardy Family are proud to present this plaque to our dear mother for her exemplary work in removing the hard water stains and pee spots from our porcelain throne!" Well, it does have a nice ring to it. I think mabey our kids need to learn that the reward for good behavior and exeptional work often is just the fact that you can pay your bills, provide for your own needs, be respected by your employer and respect yourself.

At any rate the award season is not over. I still have the band banquet for our middle schooler and the athletic banquet for my high school student. I just pray that neither of them will be honored with the coveted "King Poo Poo" award. One of those in a family is plenty!