Getting Your Child to do Chores
My six-year-old is reaching that stage when he’s “forgetting” to do his chores. 
I know it’s genetic; he got that from me. There were plenty of times when I was growing up when I “forgot” to do the things my mother told me to do.
Payback’s a pain in the tuckus. 
My mother had this idea of a Job Jar. Half of the slips of paper were jobs while the other half were rewards. You had a fifty-fifty chance of choosing a job or a reward. Great idea, right? Except she didn’t realize that 12-year-olds have mastered the art of sabotage. One day when she wasn’t around, I took out all the jobs and crumpled up the slips into little balls while the rewards remained smooth. The next few times I drew out of the job jar, magically they were all rewards. Huh. How’d that happen? 
Mom wised up and the Job Jar went away. But I had a few weeks of going out to dinner, the movies, and fishing, in the meantime. 
Now, I’m at that point where I have to train my own children to help out around the house. I’m a big old meanie because I believe that as a member of the family, you’re expected to help out and pull your weight. If you make the mess, you clean it up. I believe that if I give you clean clothes, you should be expected to put them away. I’m not making them scrub toilets or anything, but there are some basic responsibilities that I make my kids do (put their dishes in the dishwasher, make their own beds, put their toys away, put clean and dirty clothes away, etc.). Beyond that, I just ask for their help. Or if they are wanting to do something special, maybe they’ll volunteer.
A mom can dream, can’t she? 
Anyway, a friend send me this link that makes a customized job chart. You can even add Scooby Doo, Sponge Bob, or Dora the Explorer on the chart. How cool is that? So this morning I set up the days of the week and a list of daily expectations my son needed to do. He really liked it, and I didn’t have to boss him around all morning. I am loving that.
It may not work for an extended period of time, but I’m going to give it a shot. Maybe I’ll take him out for ice cream or do a reward of some sort when he’s completed the chart. I definitely won’t fall into the trap of–if you do this, you’ll get this. I’m more of a–you’re EXPECTED to do this, and maybe once in a while happy surprise rewards will happen. 
So now I’m wondering about the whole allowance thing. I was given a weekly allowance and I used it to save up for things I wanted. My husband isn’t really into that. What have you guys done for your kids? Or if you don’t have kids, did you have an allowance?
Michelle posted in Writing @ 8:18 am | Viewed 1133 times
Treasia Says:
Our kids are expected to do daily and weekly chores as being part of a family as well. chores are based on age appropriate things. As well they receive an allowance for doing them on time and not having to be reminded of it. If not, then no allowance and no exceptions. Cleaning up after themselves, putting their clothes away and things like this are not part of the allowance receiving. It’s their money they have earned to spend how they want to as well. When we have family nights out, such as bowling, we purchase the first food and drinks, after that the kids must use their own money for any extras as well. This also helps teach them the value of the dollar they earned.
Amy Says:
Our boys are expected to do a certain amount each day. And yes, I make them scrub toilets. Trust me, I’m not the one missing the bowl. But my kids are older: 9 & 13.
They have allowances and a list of what it’s expected to pay for…the allowance isn’t tied to their chores, because they need to learn money management, and we don’t want a teenage job to be more lucrative than helping out at home. What is tied to their chores are privileges like going to the movies, having friends over, (and soon for the older one: driving the car), &c.
The charts never worked for our boys. Especially not 9, who is auditory, so a nightly run-down, verbally, of what needs to happen the next day works much better. I wish I could say we didn’t get a lot of grief from him, but I can’t. Someday, he’ll move out and be responsible for his own space.
beth Says:
Like the PP, we got an allowance for doing our chores without being nagged. No chores or lots of nagging = no money. And that was it as far as money we got, so if we wanted something but hadn’t saved up, well…tough. (mostly, sometimes you could work the ssytem.
)
When we were old enough to be mortified by the overly flowered and bowed clothes mom wanted to buy us, we started getting a clothing allowance in addition - with the caveat that she couldn’t complain about our choices (with some rules, no hot pants, for example) but also the clothes we bought were what we had — so if we needed a new coat in the fall, we needed to budget accordingly. Definitely taught us the value of a dollar.
I suspect we’ll do something similar. Hope the chart works out for now - I like that idea for littler kids.
Michelle Says:
Amy–I think they’ll be cleaning toilets when they get older. The thing is, there’s so much work to having kids–more laundry, more to clean, etc. that you just have to have them help out. You can’t get it all done otherwise. Right now one of his chores is to wipe down the bathroom sink. Not hard to do, but it’ll make a difference.
Treasia–I like your idea of having them pay for the extras.
Beth–good point on the clothing allowance. I pretty much let my mother dress me when I was growing up, because I didn’t care as much about clothes, but I don’t know that I’ll trust my fashion disaster girl. She wore orange and pink yesterday (shudder).
I’m leaning toward an allowance because it will teach them how to save up for something they want. But the question is, do I tie it to chores or not? Hard to say. You guys have some great ideas!
Lynellen Says:
As my sister and I discussed sometime recently, she had a lot more saveable money because when I would buy something with my allowance she’d play with it too and not have to spend hers.
I agree that chores are expected. Allowance should not be a demand or a bribe. It’s not free magic money…someone had to work for it in the first place in order to give it to the kids.