How about fining children who look and said that they can't find them and then you walk in the room and find them? Or pay younger children to do a bed sweep/dresser sweep and pay them 10 cents for every book they find. I bet they will look harder if they get some kind of pay (money, ice cream, extra cookie).

Or they can only check out the same amount of books that they bring to the library. It's worth a try.

I was gonna say same as Karen! As frustrating as our 'token system' has been to keep up with, it's excellent for this sort of thing - I'm able to 'fine' my kids (non-monetary) for things like forgetting to bring their glasses to school or hitting their brother... and reward them for chores, etc. They use the tokens for computer time, date nights, straw in their juice at supper, pick tomorrow night's supper, etc... and even the youngest guys understand when I take a green paperclip off of their safety pin, it means they've just been docked a half-hour of computer time. The hardest part is being the "bad guy" and sticking to my guns, but when I actually do follow through consistently, it's been good for all of us. We've had to replace a book or two, but my older two now "get it" and I think we've only lost one book in the last year - including both the public library and the school library!

Whenever I go to the library, I find I get deeply searching for some books and within 5 minutes I have to pee like a madman.

Hiya Kim! :) That's a lot of library books. We ought to go more, to the library. I always like it when we do, but then we never go back. Maybe this fall...

I would love to see a recent picture of your fab hair! It always looks so nice, I think.

You got some GREAT pictures of fire works!! I tired a few times over a few different years and was never satisified with the results. I'll stick to garden produce for now. lol

Have a fantabulous Friday!

Hugs, Robin

hmmm. I think I just saw a new product where you can put a sensor on each item and then use a handheld device to locate each item. : - )

We've had to institute a library of our own here. The worst grounding we have at our disposal for the worst of offenses is library suspension so the kids take it very seriously, especially in the summer when it's so BORING. We have a daily "Librarian" at our house who checks books in and out. You can check out one book at a time and keep it out for two hours (or one overnight slot). Each hour late you earn another chore, eight hours late and you lose your public library card for a week. The librarian is given charge over the library books for her 24-hour shift and is responsible for the care and keeping of all the books on the library shelf.

It's a cumbersome system, a pain to administer and way too much paperwork. But it keeps the fines down and teaches the kids a modicum of responsibility.

We don't use the library, either... my husband outlawed that a while back... didn't like paying fines.

Thankfully, many books are available pretty cheaply... AND we have a large 'library' at home already!

That's just kids for you. Wait til they bump the fine up to 25 cents a day! I write the due dates on my calendar now! Too many $5 fines on "free" books. ugh!

The first two lines made me laugh. The rest of the post I could definitely relate to. I'm convinced that the big new library in the city where we previously lived was funded entirely from my library fines.

Sometimes I have 40 or 50 books out just on my *own* card, let alone the kids' cards. Like say if we are studying the Civil War. Because I sort of go crazy with interlibrary loan and then my own local library has such a good kids' history section and... and... and even if I return them just one day late, 40-plus books times FIFTEEN cents a day is a LOT of money

(And I know what you're thinking-- that I'm about as timely with comments as I am with returning library books. Actually, I'm catching up here after being on vacation. A vacation, by the way, on which no library books were allowed to go. We learned our lesson long ago with that one.)