Lynda Loveland: Chore chart

Say hello to my little friend! After far too many “need to's”, as in “we need to do a job chart” we finally got ‘er done.

My husband and I decided we needed to stop bellyaching about always cleaning up everything ourselves and put the kids to work. They’re old enough to help and they can earn money to buy their own stuff!

We’re in the middle of week two and so far, so good. The house is noticeably cleaner!

The hardest part was teaching the kids the right way to do things. For me, it’s always just been easier and better to do it myself. They may not be doing quite the job I could do, (which is very hard to let go) but, it’s getting done and it’s getting done better each time.

Here’s how it works: Every day the kids are responsible for making their bed and cleaning their room. In addition to that, Monday through Friday, they have one rotating chore a day plus one day a week they have two chores. They each get $1 a day for completing their chores. (They’re only paid Monday through Friday. We figured that’s all we get paid for!)

If they don’t do it in a timely manner or do it poorly, the dollar goes into a community fund. At the end of the week, the kids who did their jobs every day, get to split the community fund. The kids can also earn their dollar back by successfully completing their chores AND doing extra chores on top of that.

All three of my kids have lost a dollar, once. That’s all. They did extra chores to make it up because the thought of losing toy money was too much too handle.

Why in the world didn’t we do this sooner???