I've had the kids do little chores for a long time now - picking up toys, making their beds, etc. I've been wanting to have a chore chart for a while, but I have real issues with ugly chore charts hanging on my walls, not to mention stickers and cards flying all over my house. I recently found an idea that I thought I'd like to try on this blog. I, of course, modified it for our family.
I made all these different chores cards with pictures for our early readers. I've even added new chores. I then used self-laminating paper and laminated all of them and punched a hole each one.
The lady from the blog had morning chores and evening chores. I couldn't exactly figure out how I'd make that work, so I just have morning chores and as-needed chores.
I put them all on a ring (1 per kid) and then add to the ring a magnetic clip. We have a file cabinet by our back door that the magnetic clip can hang from. My idea was for them to clip the ring to their shirt while they did their chores. That hasn't worked so well. a) it's hard for them to clip and b) one of their chores is "get dressed" - so that messes that up.
At the end of the day, we go through the ring and count out their tokens. I'm still doing the token jar (they get to take turns picking a family activity when the jar is filled up).
So far, besides the clip, it's working well. At night before I go to bed, I just swap their cards, so the next day they have different chores. I'd like to make some surprise cards - like if we are going on a trip one day, they get a pack bags card or if there's a birthday party, they get a birthday party card - just to spice it up a little.
I've also started a new deal with them for earning tokens during school. While we are doing school, they get tokens for listening, completing their work, obeying quickly, etc. It wasn't exactly motivating them. There wasn't enough immediate gratification. So now, I'm setting aside the tokens they earn during school time and if together, they earn 12, they get to play the wii or ds for 1/2 hr in the afternoon. It's really helped their behavior during school time. If someone spaces out, or whines, or doesn't listen, I just pull away one of their tokens. When I set the bar at 12, I was just guessing at how many they could earn. I think I need to inspire them to work even harder, though - I think I'll set a higher number of tokens for 45 minutes of game time or something. It's been nice, because not only is their behavior better, but I get 1/2 hour of quiet in the afternoon while they are playing AND I don't have that guilty feeling that I'm letting the games babysit - they've earned their game time this way.
Mom's been helping by taking Ben sometimes while I'm doing school with the big boys. I'm not sure if she's bored or if she feels sorry for me. Whatever the reason, it sure is nice. He gets one on one school time too that way - Granny school.
Life certainly isn't all straight in our house. I still feel like I'm swimming to catch up all the time, but little things help and soon enough, babies grow and become less needy. . . . right?
3 comments:
It is amazing what a little daily motivation does for school time. I have used different things as they work for each child. ie for Josh he has to earn his 30 minutes of tv time and Faith has to have a good attitude in order to play with friends in the afternoon. Those attitudes change rather quickly when you find something important to them:)
Mom likes those boys and has finally found someone to play scrabble with her and can't think of a reason to feel sorry for you. She is also happy to report that she does not ever remember being bored.
Sounds like you're being very pro-active and that's great. Training them from the beginning makes things much easier when they are older. Love you all.
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