This week we (and by we I actually mean Will this time, this is his favorite list :)) decided it was time to revamp the rules list for the year. So last night Will and Brion and I sat down, and Evie danced around between us, while we made up this years rules.They are mostly standard "respect yourself and your family, follow the rules" kind of things. We have had some funny ones over the years. My favorite came off of last years - "No toys at school, no sticks at all". Thankfully the stick ban has been lifted now that we are mature enough to behave with them :).
The whole, making the rules as a group thing is definitely a leftover from my teaching days when I used to have my class make up our rules at the beginning of the year. That was always a hilarious lesson, especially with kindergartners who always focus on specifics like "If you have a red crayon and you want a blue one because blue is the color of your favorite dinosaur shirt and you couldn't wear it because mommy said it was dirty then you have to put the red one back first."
I'm sure Evie will come up wiht some funny ones in the coming years as she gets old enough to contribute (last night she smiled, nodded "yes" that she agreed to the rules then asked if we could all sing "So Long, Farewell.", so not a whole lot of help on the rule making front, as yet)But it got me wondering how other families handle rule-making. Do you write your rules down or is that uneccessary in your house? Did you have strict rules as a kid? I don't remember having them written down but I was sort of a dreamy kind of kid so they may have been and I just floated by without noticing them. I didn't like to get in trouble anyway, so maybe they weren't very important in my house. :) But what do you do?