Welcome Erlana
Saturday, June 30, 2007I just adopted a new webkinz Erlana. She is a chihuahua and my 16th webkinz.
I got her because I made a U10 Challenge soccer team for Triangle Futbol Club! I’m very very very happy about both.
Category : webkinz, webkinz pets
Does your mom spoil you? They cost $30 each. It seems your getting like 2 a week
$30? Nahh, they cost $11 to $15. I don’t ever pay more than $20 for them.
Hayley has to earn them. Has she been really lucky lately – sure but she’s worked really hard for them. We are firm believers in praising children with our words and our efforts. This is the thing Hayley has selected that she wants to be rewarded with for her work.
She got Camille for getting five days of Kumon math in a row perfect – that’s over 500 straight math problems all correct, doing them as quick as she can (she actually has to time them). I think that deserves a reward. The ante has now been upped to six days in a row perfect.
She got one recently for scoring points in two straight swim meets. She just moved up a age group, most of her friends stayed in 7-8 but she is now the youngest in 9-10 on her team. She has meets on Tuesdays and practices Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday – that’s five days a week she works on swimming but she has to score points to help win the meet, two meets in a row to get one. Again, that’s hard work.
She’s played five seasons of outdoor soccer, two seasons of indoor soccer. She’s been working hard to prepare for tryouts on her own, playing soccer with older kids and conditioning. Making a Challenge soccer team is a big deal to us and her. So we wanted to make a big deal out of that.
The Panda was a pull from the trading cards.
Her next one she has to buy from us, it is a polar bear that she has saved up her $1 week allowance for 12 weeks to buy from me.
Do we spoil her? No because we have high expectations of Hayley. Our love for her is unconditional but she works really hard.
AWW! Michelle, you’re a GREAT mother!!! I wish that I could be like Hayley!!!
Groovydudes~aka~Jaime
Michelle, I have been reading your website for awhile now to get tips on webkinz. Now, I have found that I can get great parenting tips, also! Thank you for being an incrediable mother to Hayley. It is wonderful to know that there are parents out there with traditional standards and expectations for their children. I believe you have a great reward system for you daughter and that you are teaching her wonderful life lessons in a positive and loving way. Congratulations to the both of you on your amazing relationship!
Jennifer, thanks so much for your kind words. We try to really balance letting her be a child with teaching her the value of hard work – not to mention trying to find alternative ways to teach her new skills and help with reading/writing, etc.
Sometime Dr. Phil once said about finding your child’s “currency” and using it to help in your parenting has really stuck with us. Maybe she’ll find something else she likes more than webkinz next year and we’ll be back to square one with connecting with her. But I’ll ride this webkinz thing as long as I can!
And we’ve really tied this in with sports because we want to make sure she isn’t some kid who just plays on the computer all day.
We have definitely see a huge increase in her math accuracy since we saw this. She’d routinely leave like one blank by mistake or make little errors every so often that could have been caught by checking her work. This has made a huge impact on those two problems. I’ll happily motivate and reward her for the impact those are going to have on her overall math skills in the future.
I don’t care if she comes in last every time, I care most that she prepares well and tries her best. Heck I told her last swim meet, I was more pleased with her for being a good teammate for encouraging some of the younger swimmers than her good backstroke race!
She will be playing on the computer all day if you keep GIVING her more. for her to get she needs to work for up to and including 16 weeks! She seems to be working for about 1 week then posting a picture of her new webkinz.
Im Sorry for being rude but sometimes when i feel i have to say it, i do(im ten years old)
Beebop,
Despite you being 10, I’ll give you a very exacting answer instead of blowing you off.
1. We don’t give her them, she EARNS them. As I said, she’s been on a lucky streak lately.
Hayley works very hard and this is her chosen reward structure. She has several tracks she is on to get rewards and they just seemed to converge around the same time.
And guess what, she got another today too.
She won’t be able to one for math for at least 1-2 weeks, another for swimming for over 2 weeks and nothing more for soccer until several months.
My child has the option of doing whatever she wants with her allowance. She now gets $2 a week, so it could be another six weeks before she earns on through that.
Many of the ones she got to start with were gifts from her bday party, Easter and other ways that have nothing to do with us. They were gifts. So again, she has hit a convergance of summer activities.
2. She won’t be playing on all day on the computer because it really doesn’t matter if you have one or ten webkinz in terms of time because you can only play with one at a time.
That is a built in stop gap measure. They can’t interact with each other and you can only do the daily activities with one.
She isn’t allowed in chat plus and rarely even goes to the other chat play area.
3. Furthermore, Hayley plays on soccer, basketball and swim teams, she also horseback riding, tennis and golf lessons. She is about as athletic and competitive as any kid I know.
We are always attending sporting events – she was at the U.S. Women’s PGA Open Friday, we go to college fball and basketball games all the time, pro football and soccer games as well. We are frequently out and about at events.
She does an hour of school work a day during the summer, is in a year round math program called Kumon and has a reading tutor during the summer to push ahead as well.
We live in a neigborhood with tons of kids, a pool and a quick walk to a great park.
Right now she is doing a 1,000 piece puzzle in fact with her dad, then we are going to the movies, dinner and then our family’s tradition of a Sunday swim at the pool.
My point – she isn’t home enough to spend all day on webkinz.
4. She has her own computer but it is without internet access and has to get one of our laptops to play, so we monitor her time closely. She gets bored on webkinz after like 30-40 mins and wants to post on her blog or do other things.
5. Getting a new webkinz means a chance to work on more skills. Hayley can take a screen shot, open photoshop (a $600 graphics program), crop and save the image, FTP it to our family server and post it online. She just turned nine and already has better graphic/internet skills than most adults I know.
Her father and I started with technology young too and it has made all the difference in our professional careers. I own a web development company and work for myself, now from home. My husband is an accountant and works in depth with databases and servers.
6. When it comes down to it, these are inexpensive items and I have no problem with letting her earn a couple a month. Most of the ones we have cost $12-$14.
If Hayley enjoys something, we like to faciliate that with stuff. She likes golf and had to be dragged off the course basically. So we just got her a nice set of golf clubs. She likes basketball, so she has a hoop on the cul-de-sac out front. She likes soccer so she has a net and rebounder.
She treats things well, is polite about getting them and works/plays hard. What’s wrong with that??
Motivating and faciliating is different than spoiling.
7. Once school starts things will slow down more. This is summer and she’s got time to do a lot of stuff.
8. Through this program, she has drastically improved her attention to her math skills. She went from getting maybe 1 or 2 sheets a week perfect to getting 4-5 in a row perfect and learning to check her work far better. That is invaluable and I’m thrilled by it.
9. How does it impact your life if she gets rewarded for her actions?
10. I’m 36, a mother, a wife and a business owner. I’m comfortable with my actions and with the results. You don’t have to be but it is nice that you are thinking about things that you’ll do when you are a parent.
Thank you. I now understand. She does sound athletic.(Im EXTREMELY SKINNY too. i only weigh 63 lbs.) That is a good way to earn things and i am sorry to judge you
I have good graphic and internet usage too. Sounds like you had good luck with having this Darling kid. (bye the way i tried horseback riding once then my mom found out they costed 100 dollars a lesson. I really wanted to do it but we couldn’t afford it
Michelle, I can see that you are an awesome parent! The way it works in my house is that I cannot get Webkinz if I have been misbehaving, or if I haven’t done enough to earn my 10 dollar allowance for the week. If I do get the allowance forwarded to me, I have do extra work. I just got the raccoon webkinz, and I had to do chores all day in order to receive him. Thanks again for the website! I have a question–would you guys be willing to trade anything with me? You rock!
P.S. How many Webkinz do you have now? I have 20.
i have 2. Can never snipe em up and my mom doesnt trust ordering them
Hello! Michelle, you’re awesome! I loved that comment…long but powerful! I’m going outside to excersize…I hope i get in shape more! Thanks! Also, I save up and buy webkinz with my own money,we’re getting one this week! Happy CANADA DAY!!!
It’s Canada day today here, in New Brunswick! We celebrated yester day because the town knows that today is SOME people’s church time, like me!
Groovydudes
P.S.- I have a contest page now on my new site…check it out and if you want, you can enter it with photo shop too! Check out my new posts…you’ll know want I mean
If there is a Webkinz at a store I want, I tell my mom so that we can go and get it. I’m not a brat or anything but if there is a new Webkinz and she knows I want it badly, we’ll go and pick it up. But if is an older one that I had never mentioned before, I either have to use my own money or wait to get it as a gift. I have a question Michelle and Hayley. What was your highest amount of Kinzcash???
Hula, overall close to 30,000 but we buy rares so often, it gets knocked back down. I like to keep it between 15-20. In a game, $450 on a bonus day in Zingos Pop.
Groovy, go for it. Being strong and healthy is a very good thing. I’ll try to check your site but today is a swim meet and nutty. Happy Canada Day to you too. My grandmother was from Nova Scotia, not too far from NB.
Beebop, I’m sorry your mom isn’t ok with ordering online. I think I buy more stuff in general online than offline. Have you thought about asking for gift certificates on your birthday or something?
And you know what, I’m not mad or anything. I think it is awesome that you have the confidence to speak up. Never ever lose that!
Horseback riding isn’t $100 a lesson expensive here as we have a good number of stables close by but we do buy lessons in a quarterly package to save some money. But then the new boots, helmets, crop, gloves, half-chaps, etc really start to add up.
CheerleaderGurl, she has 17 now. Depends what you want to trade …
Wait, so you guys live in North Carolina, you said? It seems that Hayley is one active girl-horseback riding, golfing, swimming-that is so cool that she is in to so many activities!
How did you get so much Kinzcash? The highest amount of Kinzcash I have ever gotten is 12,000. Good job!
Well, I have the King’s Guard Suit Of Armor and the Jellybean Tree. Have anything you want to trade? If you don’t want these things or already have them, I will find something else, but I am especially looking for Kooky Scientist things, Medieval things, and Egyptian things
Hmm, the problem is we are looking for those room’s stuff as well plus the card games room.
The suit of armor would definitely be something we would like.
We have the an extra egyptian dining room chair but that is the only one from those themes we have extra. In terms of rare/exclusives we have a totem pole, rainy window, dog dining room table and some other stuff.
I would love an Egyptian chair!
Is it the Vanity Chair or another chair? I already have the Vanity Chair, but I would enjoy adding a different one to my collection!
Oh, and just so you know, the King’s Guard Suit of Armor is the one that was on the Super Wheel. I just wanted to tell you in case you weren’t sure!
That is fine with Hayley she said.
This is the Epygtian Dining Chair:
http://hillison.com/kinz/egchair.jpg
my mom just calls me bad names like (A double s, ungreatful, rotten, butt and sometimes the F BOMB)
Hey, Michelle and Hayley, I would love that chair! Would you be willing to trade?
There Are Some New Webkinz Coming Out The Yellow Lab The Collie The Spring Chick And The Penguin Coming Out Next Year They Are Coming Out Next Year The Love Frog Is One We Know About There Is The Welsh Corgi And Tabbie Cat I Think Those Ones Are Rumors Each One Has New Codes I Have The Yellow Lab And Collie On Preoder.
The Collie Is Lassie And The Yellow Lab Is Rumper Thoese Are The Names I PIcked For Them.
Wow!