CHORES

I've been feeling strongly for the last year or so that I need to be better at teaching my kids to work. I remember having daily chores and Saturday chores from a very young age and I knew it was important. But I find myself cleaning up after my kids far too often, feeling like it wasn't worth the battle or the time to make them do it themselves. They have now had daily chores for awhile (dishwasher, bedroom, toyroom), but I was still struggling with Saturday chores. Then, when I couldn't sleep one night, I read a friend of a friend's blog (I wish I could remember who's!) about the way they did chores and it changed everything for us. I catered the idea for the ages of my kids, but it has worked great!

I write down all the chores that need to be done that day and cut them up into strips. But instead of one paper saying "clean the upstairs bathroom," I break every chore down so it would say "clean the sink of the upstairs bathroom" instead. So there are 5 or so strips just for the upstairs bathroom, make sense? 

 

We gather at the table and each boy picks a strip. But there aren't just house hold chores on there. There are also strips that say "write all the names of the people in your family," (for the kid that's learning to read and write) and "eat 10 marshmallows," and "take a break," and "write a thank you note to Grandma for the package she sent," etc. Other ideas are: read a book with mom or dad, do a secret service for someone in the family, practice piano, and so on. Chores include things like clean a toilet, dust the piano, vacuum the stairs, etc. They don't pick a new strip until they are both done with the one they have, thus discouraging dawdling (they're going to clean that toilet pretty fast if they know their brother picked a "take a break" strip). And Brad or I are either doing their chore with them, to teach them to do it correctly, or we have to check it off before they can move on.

 "Write the names of all the people in your family" strip...

 "Write a thank-you note to Granny and Grandpa for your birthday present" strip

 "Clean the window" strip

The best part about this is that THEY DON'T FIGHT! THEY RARELY COMPLAIN!! They actually look forward to doing chores on Saturday morning. And the chores get done in a fun way. I wish I could give credit to whoever I stole this idea from, but I guess that's what I get for being a year behind on my blog. ;)