Live, Love, Dance!!! asked:
I have four kids between dance lessons, golf and school homework I don’t know when we can schedule a time for daily and weekend chores? What is the way you’ve been successful in getting your kids to participate motivated to do their chores? Any suggestions would be so helpful! Thanks….websites book ideas are welcome too!
Savannah
I have four kids between dance lessons, golf and school homework I don’t know when we can schedule a time for daily and weekend chores? What is the way you’ve been successful in getting your kids to participate motivated to do their chores? Any suggestions would be so helpful! Thanks….websites book ideas are welcome too!
Savannah
November 26th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Landon
schedule it
November 29th, 2009 at 12:02 am
Cole
number one, both parents have to be in agreement over what the children should do. My husband didn’t think our sons should do housework. That undermined me. But they turned out ok, I still maintained discipline.
Number two, nag. it’s your job. withhold any pleasurable pasttimes from them until they do their work. You have to stick to it.
Children shouldn’t be in any activities unless they really want it. Like dance. And golf. And these are privileges. They don’t get to have these privileges unless they show you respect by obeying you and doing what they are told. It sure makes it harder for teachers, and everybody,
when children don’t get needed discipline at home.
November 29th, 2009 at 12:34 am
Brayden
Its hard to say as you have given no ages.
Every child should have chores depending on their ages. we work on a points system, which equals time on the computer/playstation whatever. They earn points for the next day, so if they run out of points then they cannot do some quick job to get some more time.
make a list af all the things that you want them to do, from cleaning their room to filling the dishwasher. As they seem to be buisy during the week maybe just a few things that is not going to take much time. then at the W/E they can do a little more. the system works well as we can add something else if we want and because they are going to get points for it they are more willing to do it, we have just started to vary it a little where we do not always give them points, but they are still willing to do it, if they ask how many points are they going to get they do not get any, if they do the job well and don’t ask they may get points. we even give them points if they are particularly nice to each other, (boys).
Give it try
RR
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:05 am
Sean
I am someone who considers Reward to be a better method than Punishment for most cases, especially chores. I like to motivate children instead of threatening children when it comes to doing mundane tasks.
Put up a chart that lists all the chores that need to be done for every day of the week. Tell them that when they complete one of the tasks, they can sign their name in the appropriate slot. Or you can have them pick out their own stickers that will tell each of them apart… this can be more fun for them since they will love the stickers they picked out.
Listing the chores in this way lets each child choose what chores they want to do, and motivates them to do them soon, or else the other siblings will have taken up the easy chores, and the one who waited will be left with the harder chores.
Then, at the end of the week (or month, however you want to do it), you will count how many chores each kid did by adding up their stickers, and reward them with something depending on how it adds up. The easiest/fairest calculation would be with money… each sticker represents a certain amount of money that they will receive at the end of the week. (which is essentially them earning an ‘allowance’.)
But depending on your children’s ages, money might not be a good reward. Maybe the reward is being able to have a sleepover if they get a certain amount of stickers, or being allowed to stay up late one night, or candy – you decide the rewards, because you know what they like. You just have to make sure that bigger rewards come with more stickers. You can even offer to let them save up their stickers, to eventually get a really big prize, like a toy they’ve always wanted.
Whatever the prizes are, don’t let the prize effect the other children, or there will be resentment between the siblings. For example, don’t let the prize be that the kid with the most stickers gets to decide what will be for dinner, because their choice of dinner effects the rest of the children. Stay away from the whole, whoever gets the most stickers is the best child thing. It is important that it is not a contest between them. Congratulate and reward them individually for their efforts. Every sticker represents an effort, and should be rewarded accordingly. You got X amount of stickers this week, so you earned [blank]. It’s okay to give the child who earned the most more praise, but don’t rub it in the other siblings faces by talking about it all night, or they’ll feel like giving up on the whole thing. The kids will see one kid get a bigger reward for doing more chores, and that will be motivation enough.
As far as scheduling goes, just remind them when there’s down-time that now would be a good time to go and earn those stickers!
One last thing… if the children’s ages effect what chores can be done by them, you can have two separate chore charts, one for the two older ones and another for the two younger ones.
Good Luck!
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Zoe
Make up a system which you put on the refrigerator door. Each child has their name on on a piece of paper and there are a list of chores and they mark each chore they have done.
Like so:
list of chores horizontal: Doing the dishes, cooking,vacuumingg
list of names vertical:
Emily
Connor:
Theodor:
And when they have done a certain amount of chores they get a reward. What do ya think? It is a more fun way… because the children will want their reward and they know to get it they must do… chores and they will be more enthusiastic about it.
December 5th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Zachary
the first thing i would suggest is train them when they are little ,from three they love to help with doing stuff around home , my 3 year old loves vacuuming ,we make fun out of the menial tasks but as they get older do a reward system but not money purely because as mums and dads do we get paid for keeping a house tidy or keeping the family fed or being the childs nurse when they are sick ,no we do it because those things must be done and that is the privilage of being called mum or dad ,and i know it sounds harsh but we should make time for fun as well , our rule is work hard then play hard,
December 7th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Mary
My children’s chores, if they are done properly each day, take all of a half hour to complete per child. During the school year, since I am the only one at home, I have most of them completed during the course of the day (their bedrooms, all year round, are their responsibility), leaving their afternoons free for their homework as well as their after school activities. I look at it this way, between the being at school all day working, coming home doing homework, then busting their butts on the field all evening, they are already putting in the equivalent of 2 full time jobs, the chores can wait until the weekend for them.
December 10th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Riley
I LOVE this question. Even though the non-busy Saturday’s are few far between – we always have a Saturday Cleaning Day. I created a table in Microsoft Word that lists all cleaning day chores in the house. The chores are broken down room by room and chore by chore. (Such as… dust living room, clean bathroom counter top, pick up shoe room, sweep shoe room, etc…) The table consists of a chore column, name column done column. I print this table and put it on the counter. My children will go to the sheet, pick a chore and write their name next to the chore they are going to do… go do the chore… come back and but an X in the done column… then write their name next to another chore. We all continue until the sheet is complete and the house is sparkling. We try to make it a fun day by playing music and dancing around while we clean. The list has been a really neat thing, the kids don’t feel like I am telling them what to do and they are choosing their own chores. I am really glad I started this.
:0)
.
December 10th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Adam
Get a clear plastic container and a white board. Write simple tasks that each child can do on the white board and keep it on the refrigerator. Write what each child will receive for each chore (we do change and that’s what the container is for) on the board….simpler tasks like putting the dishes away or feeding the animals get little rewards such as 10 cents and bigger chores such as vacuuming or dusting get 25 cents. Watching the clear jar grow is fun to my four year old and she knows that if she doesn’t work she doesn’t get paid!
December 11th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Riley
Saturday mornings are house cleaning mornings in our house. Since my kids are early risers, we do the cleaning as soon as we get up in the morning and everyone pitches in. We clean bathrooms, sweep and mop floors, vacuum, mow the lawn, dust and clean mirrors (all bedrooms have floor length mirrors on the sliding closet doors!). When I say early, I mean we get up between 6:30/7 and have the whole house clean by 9 am. They can’t watch TV or do anything fun until it’s clean. If there’s an early game, which we had during baseball, we do some chores on Friday afternoon.
Other than that, they have regular things they do every day to keep the house clean-looking. They make their beds the minute they get up as part of their daily morning routine. They wipe down the sink at night before bed and the mirror in the bathroom if there are any toothpaste spots. Cleaning up all the toys is part of the bedtime routine. Also, when they get dressed in the morning or undressed at night, their dirty clothes/pajamas go right into the hamper and shoes go right into their closets. We’ve made it part of their routine so they just do it without thinking.
My kids earn chore tokens that are each worth 15 minutes of computer time. We are trying to do decide on a better system to use for the tokens, but that’s what it is now. We do limit the computer time to the use of 2 tokens per day per child.