Last week I asked you, my blogger friends, how you deal with kids and chores. Thank you for all your answers and great tips; you gave me tons of inspiration! Today I want to share what works for us!I started with a plastic clothes hanger and a bag of cheap clothespins. On each clothespin I wrote one of the things that has to be done as part of either Morning Routine or the Before Bed Routine. (Get dressed, brush teeth, feed cats, homework, put on pj's, etc.) I then clipped all the Morning Routine things on the top left side of the hanger and all the Before Bed Routine clips to the top right side of the hanger. As each boy completes a clothespin task he moves the clothespin to the bottom of the hanger.
*One of the things we really struggle with is being cheerful rather than grumpy, whiny, disgruntled, etc. so one of the clips on both sides (Morning and Before Bed) says, "Be Cheerful."
Each boy has his own hanger and I duplicated most of the clothespins for each boy, but some are unique to them. For instance, D feeds the cats, S sets the table and A empties the dish washer. I also have one clothespin that says, "Kitchen helper" and that clothespin moves from hanger to hanger. (If the kitchen helper clothespin is on your hanger than you get to help mom cook that day.) * I included a small, badly drawn doodle to help the non reader know which clothespins what for what job.
They aren't paid for any of these clothespins.
Now, in a mug I have a bunch of extra chores that can be done for money. Wash windows, sweep under the table, wipe down bathroom counters, bring the garbage can from the curb, sort recycling, etc. These clothespins are clipped to the outside of a mug. If A chooses a chore from the mug he does it and clips the clip to his hanger and that night I will trade his chore clothespin for a dollar sign clothespin that will stay on his hanger until Pay!! Day!!
How much wampum? A dime a chore!
Leave a comment and then head on over to Rocks in My Dryer to see more great tips about everything!
Leave a comment and then head on over to Rocks in My Dryer to see more great tips about everything!
13 comments:
This is a great idea. I need to start doing something like this with my daughter soon.
I like the way you are doing that! Very creative, and looks easy for the kids to follow.
You are so smart....easy, economical.....I like it!! I think this would be an easy one to teach some of the mothers I work with (who can be unmotivated to do sonething more involved!!)
Love it sweets! I knew you could do it! So how are they following through with? And what's the consequence if their clothespins don't move?
Love you!
LOVE the hanger idea. Thanks for sharing!
Great idea with the mug for extra chores. We do a task sheet for the every day un-paid chores but I always struggle with how to keep the extra chores current, and keep track of what has been done. On a a side note - when our daughter works to make extra money we keep half to put in the bank for college. We all it "Abby Security". We have told her any thing she saves we will match when she starts college. Thus we are are alos her 401K.
WooHoo!!! We've been discussing getting some sort of a system up and running again around our household. I'm going to steal, I mean borrow this idea:-) I love love love the clothespin idea!!!! AND only getting paid for the extra chores. Totally agree w/ the dime/chore...that's exactly the amt. dh and I thought would be appopriate:-)
This is such an awesome idea. I will definitely use it in the future.
What a creative idea! I love it!!
Wow! Love this nifty idea. Can't wait for Miss Addy to get bigger so we can push off some house chores on her (ha ha ha ha ha)
Thanks fo sharing.
I finally got over here! Sorry, I'm so bad!
Great idea! I love the mug idea and the pay. Even at a dime a chore, they are getting the idea, I'm sure.
I hope they are sticking with it. My kids have already fallen off the chore-band wagon. HA!
What a great idea! We're just collecting together a review of shop-bought chore charts after one worked really well on Friday's Supernanny, but yours is definitely a rival!
Thanks for sharing.
rw
http://todayshousewife.blogspot.com/
I thought of this post today when I read Today's Housewife is looking for DIY parenting, cooking, etc...posts. If you're interested, go there and link up:-)
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