I am definitely not perfect with this and some times of the year I am better at requiring my kids to help. Baseball season and end of dance season is the season where I am less strict because it is long days for my kids and late nights or a grab and go dinner. Or I am just ready for my kids to be in bed so I can clean up without them adding to the mess.
When I was pregnant with my daughter I was sick A LOT from pregnancy, colds, allergies, strep throat three times and then an infection around my heart. During these months, I rarely made food and cleaned because I was barely surviving just doing what was needed between teaching school, dance, church and Tball plus having my kids.
My boys were awful about cleaning up and doing what was asked because I was barely surviving and they knew I wasn’t going to enforce like I usually do. Granted they were 2 and 5, so they were still little but could have helped cleaning up just a tad more than nothing. ha ha ha
So when I was finally starting to get a little better, I made them a responsibility sheet and they could earn privileges. We also monitored their behavior every day with this chart. My boys LOVED this. Even on rough days where they didn’t get to mark very much with behaviors and responsibilities, they still enjoyed doing it and it gave my boys a chance to think about how they behaved and that they could do better. Plus they could monitor earning privileges, so they could see that they needed to do a little bit more helping to get more privileges.
I told my kids there are “responsibilities” and there are “chores”.
Responsibilities: A responsibility is something you should be doing for yourself. Something you need to take care of because it has to do with you.
1. Clean Clothes: I believe my kids can put away their own clothes, so that is their responsibility. I do the laundry and fold it, but it is their clothes that they should be responsible for and put them away. Granted, there are times I do laundry too late or I know it’s just easier to put them away real quick while they are at school or in between activities, so I will put them away. (or when I did parent clothes and found a couple pieces and they aren’t put their clothes away)
2. Dirty dishes. I believe my kids can put their own dishes in the sink. They should not leave a mess and expect someone else to come pick it up for them. Their dishes are their responsibility. I want my kids to learn to pick up their own stuff and be helpful.
3. Something nice: honestly, this was a space filler at first, but what I realized is that it was really good for my kids to recognize when they did something nice and to be mindful of how they could be nice. Even the most simple things can be nice and I wanted my kiddos to see how it can make a difference. I am glad I added that in.
Chores: My older son had 4 chores and my younger son had 3. I simply explained to the older one, that when he was 3 he had 0 chores and he didn’t get chores till he was 6. His brother is starting chores younger, so he can’t complain.
Chores: Depending on age, the chores were slightly different.
Laundry – older ones could put the clothes in a washing machine while younger ones just put in laundry soap and/push the start button.
Fold Laundry – I enjoy teaching my kids how to fold their laundry because I love seeing their bright smiles when they are so proud of themselves. I start with towels and that counts has folding laundry.
Mail – My kids are old enough to run down to the mailbox by themselves well the younger one can’t reach it, so they both have to go together. Even if I go with them and they get the mail, I still count that as done.
Help Mom – To explain this one, I was pregnant and very very sick and couldn’t move some days from sicknesses. So I would need to ask my little ones to help me get something or do something, so they got to mark it as a chore.
Clean Dishes – The kids could put some dishes away and as they have gotten older, they can put more away. They are still not tall enough to put the nice plates and bowls away, so they are to stack them on the counter and I will put them away.
Garbage Cans – My kids are just now getting old enough to take out the garbage cans or bring them in because they aren’t strong enough to move a full one. But I can mark this off if I ask them to bring all the trash cans to me to dump into a bag or soon have them dump into the bag.
Trash Out – My kids love taking out the recycling even my 2 years old and my oldest is probably big enough to take out the trash bags now.
Groceries – Man, do I get tired of watching my kids run into the house and not help with the groceries, so I added this one. It is a simple way to help out at the house, but I put it as a chore instead of responsibility. They can take what they can carry. It works well.
By marking any of these, then they can watch TV and earn one privilege. Let’s be honest, they are going to watch TV no matter what, but this way they could see it is a privileges by simply helping around the house.
Extra chores or Saturday chores: These are things they could help with (depending on age) and could earn money. As my kids got a little older (5 and 7- a whole year ha ha ha), I changed the dinner chore to a weekly chore. Actually, I changed several of these and don’t pay them to wash windows, vaccum, dust or dinner because those are things they should be helping with before they start bugging about playing the IPAD or VIDEO GAMES. But this is what I showed them as extra chores when they were younger and they offered to help shovel snow and wash the car.
PRIVILEGES: these were things I knew my kids would want and would work for. Let’s be honest, lots of times I let them play for more than half hour, but at the beginning I was really tight and strict on the time because then they could see how little 1/2 hour was compared to what they wanted to play and that they needed to do chores to earn their time. It was fun to see what they chose for their privileges each week.
Mystery Gift – This was a little box that had $1 store or other small things the kids might like a new bath toy.
BEHAVIORS:
OLDER – THE NEW CHORE CHART
As my kids grew a whole 1-2 years older and we had two kids in baseball games that went later and more busy schedules, I needed to change it up. We weren’t having tons of time to do it and they were older and could help more.
I combined the two papers and changed of the chores. Instead of just trying to get their 3 or 4 chores, they could help with the laundry three times that week and get 3 points towards privileges. They could earn more privileges the more they helped.
They were expected to help with a dinner chore every day now too. They either were asked to set the table and help get food out or asked to help clean up dinner and sweep the floor. One week they did the before and one week they did the after – this way I wasn’t constantly trying to figure out who had done what the night before.
This chart has worked good when we have the time to fill it out every day, but during spring season when we have dance and baseball several nights a week, I am coming up with a new thing. Something easy and quick. I’ll post it up when I decide.
Good read!!
Thank you!!
I like that you differentiated between chores and responsibilities! Also great that you added doing something nice – teaching them early to be kind every day!
🙌🏼thank you!!
A lot of great ideas!