Service Love Notes

I've been thinking and praying a lot about how to have more love and peace in our home and less contention. I don't know if my kids argue more than other kids or if its just that I've always been very sensitive to contention...but when my kids are playing happily together and being kind to each other, nothing else really even seems to matter to me. They could break the windows and track mud across the carpet, and still I start to sing, "Home can be a heaven on earth!" and I walk around doing jazz hands and smiling while I do the dishes. When there is yelling and fighting, I sink into despair, cover my head and wail, "Why? What have I done wrong? I am a failure as a mother!" Or something along those lines.

I've tried using a method from my childhood home. Its goes something like this: kids are fighting, you sneak up to them and bash their heads together, then they stop fighting. But that didn't work with my kids for some reason. Instead they were just fighting AND crying...

Anyway, I know that one way to feel love for others is to serve them. I have found that to be a true principle through out my life. So, I came up with an idea to get the kids serving each other more. We had a family night where we talked about service and came up with lots of ideas of what it means and how we can serve. I got a little can and cut a whole in the lid. I then explained that the kids would have one week to do service for each other. They would write what they did on a "love note" and put it in the jar. To encourage and establish a pattern of behavior (not bribe), the kids helped us come up with some rewards. If the jar had 15 notes in it at the end of the week they'd get a piece of gum, over 25 notes they'd get a candy bar, over 45 notes they'd receive Glow in the Dark chalk, and if it contained over 65 notes, we'd take them to get a kids' meal at McDonalds.

They didn't put their names on the notes, but I could figure most of them out. :) I really loved this experiment because the kids got so excited about it. At the end of the week we had 75 notes! I did notice a marked decrease in fighting and I loved hearing them say, "Oh, that's an awesome service!" or "Hold on just a minute, I am just finishing a service."

A lot of the notes had the same theme:

Hm...I wonder why?
The kids also got creative. They thought it would be a blast to wash the van and surprise me with it. They got dish soap and towels. They tried really hard. It didn't turn out very clean but they got an A+ for effort. And more importantly, they had a really fun time together.
Here are a few other examples:
And here is a picture of Lila for no reason except that she's cute:
And now you will be enjoying my favorite two notes. They are very funny for multiple reasons. The kids were really excited to wrap small gifts to give to their teachers for "Teacher Appreciation Week". The service experiment was definitely a success. We finished the week with kids' meals and an FHE talking about why we serve others and the blessing we receive within ourselves, our families, and in heaven. We are continuing to emphasize service and will bring out the jar again next month for a week with some new reward incentives to liven things up.

What do you do in your families to help your kids get along?

P.S. No presents were harmed during this experiment.