Daily Chores

I do not think any one way of organizing chores works for everyone. We have gone through many ways of organizing chores. We keep changing as I learn what works with my kids.

I will begin by saying that I do not pay my kids for doing chores. James has been known to give them money to do things from time to time but I will not. Part of being a family is helping each other. You should not have to be paid to help out. I already spend way too much money on my kids.

If they ever complain I just ask them if they would rather get paid an allowance and then have to buy everything for themselves. They quickly realize how little they could afford and change their mind. If they want extra money for things they know that they then must also do extra work.

We have done spreadsheets with each child having assigned chores each day. At first they changed what jobs they did everyday. They then complained about the person before them not doing a good job so they had to do more work.

I then had two different ones and they changed jobs back and forth each week. This meant they got to change jobs once in awhile but could only blame themselves if a job was not done well the day before. They still did not like all of the jobs and I would get busy and not keep track of what spreadsheet they should be on.

Through time the whole system changed to what we do now. Each child has things that they would rather do and are better at so we sat down and chose permanent chores. I wrote down all of the jobs that I want done on a daily bases and made sure to make it an even list. We then all sat down and split them up. The girls talked it out and decided who got what.

My life has gotten soooo much easier with this method. The girls all have things they are in charge of so when they see it needs to get done they do it. If they get busy and forget I just say that something needs to get done and the person who has that job does it.

On special cleaning days I make a list of jobs. I am sure to make them all even so everyone will get around the same amount of work. Then I am done and my "cleaning fairies" go to work. I let them choose and initial one job on the list and start working on it. Then they do not get to choose the next job until they finish the first one. This continues until the last job is done.

They become super fast cleaning fairies because they do not want to be stuck with a job they do not like. The big one is cleaning up after the dogs. The child that cleans the slowest is on pooper scooper duty. This turns even the laziest child into a fast cleaner. I even use this when kids do not want to get up for school. I inform the children that the last child fully dressed has pooper scooper duty after school. In a flash I have 3 fully dressed kids that are ready for school.




2 Responses
  1. Brianne Says:

    Wow it is a good thing you have pooper scooper duty! We don't have pets so maybe cleaning the bathroom will be the chore no one wants! My oldest is only 5 so her chore is cleaning her toys. But she is such a help all the time, so far!


  2. That's a good system! Congratulations on coming up with something that works well for your family. That's nice they all hate the same job, very convenient for you to use that as a motivator!


 
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