Each child has a chart that gets marked at the end of the day with a sticker for each job completed.
Chores listed are:
good morning- basically for school days, did the kids get up and ready without lots of grumbling?
dinner chore- set table, clear table or sweep, rotating daily. We use this chart to keep track of whose turn it is by simply turning the inner wheel.
popsicle job- these are the best and the kids actually enjoy these-- (see below)
b and b 15- This is suppose to be "baskets and bedrooms for 15 minutes." This is the one that rarely happens. Ideally, in the evening kids would get their baskets off the stairs, load them up with any other stuff that is downstairs, take them to their rooms and put the stuff away and continue to tidy their rooms until 15 minutes is up. Since this hardly got done, I decided to alternate it with popsicle jobs thinking maybe we'd do better at hitting it 3 times a week. But it hasn't really helped. I think I will go back to popsicle jobs daily since the kids seriously like them. As for bedrooms--HELP!
Other chores for individuals include dry undies and mommy's helper for Faith, feeding cats for Paul, and piano practice for Olivia. And least I forget, homework for the biggest two.
The reward is an allowance at the end of the week. Allowance is determined by how many stickers on the chart- they receive 10 cents per sticker earned from M-F. Then on Saturday, if they participate well on a family project they can earn an extra dollar. And if they work together on the playroom for 30 minutes that's another dollar. So they can potentially earn $5/week. I also have the fam project and playroom pick up listed on the Saturday column but these don't show on my photo.
Now for the best tip I have ever received and must pass along...POPSICLE JOBS! My friend Lisa shared this with me. She found it on Stacy Julian's website where you can read Stacy's description of how it works for her. Click here and scroll down till you see the pop jobs picture that I borrowed below (my mugs aren't as cute.)
I have two mugs- these came from the cupboard (ha!). At the beginning of the week I'll have 15 pop sticks in the "jobs to do" mug. After dinner chores are through, (and I am usually still loading the dishwasher or cleaning kitchen) each child picks a stick- no peeking allowed- and does the job written on it. These jobs take about 5-10 minutes to do. But I love that they are things that I just would likely not get to otherwise! When the tasks are done, the stick goes in the "done" mug and then we start over the next week. Of course the jobs aren't done perfectly, but remember what Flylady says about that- "Housework done incorrectly still blesses your family." I like to ask Dave to help Faith with whatever job she gets and when I finish up in the kitchen I usually go and see how everyone is doing and maybe do a little touch up if needed. But I do think it's really important to let the kids own these jobs- don't make them feel like you are re-doing anything or I think the fun will quickly fade. On my sticks I have-
sweep stairs
organize dvd's
wipe kitchen chairs
wipe black couches
windex front door
windex back door
clean microwave, inside and out
dust living room
dust piano room
clean wall spots
clean kitchen whites- dishwasher, oven and refrigerator (outside only)
vacuum living room
vacuum piano room
windex mirrors, tv screen, computer screen
sweep entrance
That's it, aren't the popsicle jobs awesome? I am very enthused about them as you can tell.
My plea is this....can anyone HELP me with getting my kids to clean/keep clean their bedrooms? When do you have your kids work on this? Any suggestions will be much appreciated. (I must admit that part of the problem is that Dave and I have the messiest bedroom of all, so we feel very hypocritical in enforcing anything to do with the kids' bedrooms. Obviously, we need to get our mess cleaned up first. But then what?)
2 comments:
oh my gosh clair. how do you do this? my head is spinning trying to figure it all out.
i say push the love and logic to get the bedrooms cleaned. i let them keep it however they want throughout the week, and saturday is cleanup. it used to be messy all week, until they realized that they wasted half their saturday cleaning it up. and they are welcome to keep it however they like until noon, and then i will come in and "Finish" what they didn't. which means i bring my trashbag and throw anything left away. no kidding. all it takes is one time, and they get some self-motivation really fast.
you get to use fun phrases like "feel free to keep your room however you'd like. it's your room! just remember the rule: saturdays by noon, it's your room, in MY house."
some of the other classic phrases: "feel free to join us for supper when your room is clean!" or the energy drain: "what a bummer i won't be able to take you guys to the park today. it really drained my energy when i had to finish cleaning your room with my trashbag."
it's the most enjoyably twisted form of parenting. and it really works!
flylady blog?!?! I LOVE LOVE LOVE the idea of the popsicle chores, looks like I will be buying popsicles this week...can't find any crafty things here like pipe cleaners or popsicle sticks! You are amazing, did I mention that I am already dreading Spring Break next year when Korbin is at school?
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