Chore Follow-Up

If you have read my post, But That’s Not Fun, then you know I have been working on getting my kids working. The last few weeks we have had Work Saturdays at our house. We cleaned the garage (also the laundry room) together in just an hour, and it was actually fun. We turned up the music and organized, swept, and cleaned. Some friends of ours have a set routine where they have a family activity one Saturday a month, and it is such a great idea. We are now doing that too. Tomorrow will be our Activity Day, and the kids are so excited. The anticipation actually makes it even more fun!

I have also found a kind of cheesy, but effective site where you can build your own chore charts for printing. Every week I pick a different picture for Hunter and Emma’s charts and list four chores they are in charge of for the week. With homework and things it was just too much to expect that all four chores get done every day. So for now they need to pick two from their list every day except Saturday. (On Saturday they need to do all four.) When they tell me the chores are done, I go and check them and then award a star on their chart. At Family Night on Mondays they are paid by the star as their allowance. So the more chores they do in a week, the more they will get paid. They can earn just over $5.00 per week if they do all four chores every day, but that hasn’t happened yet. So far it has worked pretty well, although it is still a program that needs some tweaking.

I came across a pod-cast that has some great advice for getting kids to do their chores. It is by Kelly Nault on Ultimate Parent, and she starts out the 16 minute talk by saying that we are inadvertently training our kids not to like doing chores. By telling the kids to go and play while the adults work or taking over a job when they don’t do it right, we are actually doing them a disservice.

Two suggestions she gives for keeping kids motivated:

1- Encouragement and Thank Yous -acknowledge how your child’s actions help you.

2- Notice the positive. Say what the child has done right.

Four suggestions she gives for making it more fun as you work along with them:

1- Dance to music

2- Make chores a game -Time them

3- Talk to each other

4- Make up stories

She says if all else fails and you’re dealing with older kids -Go on Strike!

I’ve been trying to remember to encourage and notice the positives more. I have to admit I do spend a lot of time saying things like, “You’re still not done?” or “You missed something.” Hopefully I will keep getting better about that part.