What chores do your kids do around the house and what are their ages? Do you have a good system in place? I need to step up my chore game, particularly for my almost 8 year old.
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@LadyDi: In theory, my girls (6 and 8) are supposed to clear their breakfast/dinner plates from the table and put them in the dishwasher, clean up toys in the family room each evening, straighten up their rooms weekly and put their laundry away each week. But we’re so inconsistent in making sure they really follow through, so it feels really hit or miss. I need to up my game on chores overall too as they get older and can take more ownership of things, but it feels like one more “job” for me to manage until we get in a better routine and I just keep putting it off.
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DD is 8, she has daily and weekly chores. We have definitely slacked on enforcing them lately because like caitcat said it often just feels like more work for me. But I have been making a chore chart on Canva that we will slide in a laminated pouch so we can use a dry erase marker with it. Hoping that will be easy for her to follow.
Her daily chores are:
Feeding the cat (twice a day)
Pack backpack in the morning (we keep a backpack checklist in our mudroom)
Empty backpack when she gets home
Making her bed (or at least straightening it)
Clothes in hamper each day
Picking up toys in living room
Setting the table for dinner and clearing her own dishes after all meals
Sweeping around the table after dinner
Basic bedroom cleaning (floors have to be clear enough to safely walk through at all times)Weekly:
Dust
Empty bathroom trash cans
Take recycling to garage
Bring her hamper to the laundry room, help fold her laundry/put clean cloths away
Deeper clean of her bedroom -
DS(9) has a few daily chores that we are pretty consistent with - emptying his lunch bag after school, bringing his dishes to the kitchen after meals, dirty clothes down the laundry shoot, and making a clear path for walking in his room. But I wouldn't necessarily categorize those as chores, just kind of the daily responsible maintenance of his own stuff. We are very inconsistent with offering the option of doing other chores, like sweeping, feeding the pets, emptying the dishwasher, etc. This is a good reminder that we should make some kind of family-wide system so that we all are clear on expectations and can follow through better.
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My son is 7 and has tasks he does daily as part of contributing to the household: putting his clothes in his hamper, setting and clearing the table, putting his own laundry away, picking up his toys, etc.
Then we have a list of tasks with an assigned monetary value that he can choose to complete or not. Things like stocking the fridge with La croix, emptying the dishwasher, pulling in the garbage bins, vacuuming, dusting, etc. He marks off whatever he does weekly and I pay him on Sundays. He has a checking and savings account at our local credit union and has $50 in his checking to spend and anything above that goes into his savings. So if he spends money, he has to do enough chores to get back up to $50. He’s not allowed to take money out of his savings right now, but that money is his and he will have access over time. Right now, he doesn’t want to use it because he wants to buy a car when he’s 16
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We follow some semblance of The Lazy Genius chores (I love her. Kids chores is episode #117 of her podcast and it was very great!) On weekends/summer (when there is no school) each of my older kids (ages 3-9) gets three chores assigned daily on our whiteboard. They range from emptying the dishwasher, putting away their clean clothes, dusting, vacuuming, picking up the mudroom, washing windows, cleaning off barstools, folding towels, rolling the trash out, feeding chickens, whatever. I literally just glance around the house at what needs to be done and assign accordingly
(obviously accounting for age). This is in addition to expectations like picking up after yourself, clearing your plate, keeping your room relatively clean, etc. On school days I feel like we are hardly home between school/activities so they have one chore—usually something like wiping off the counters, emptying the dishwasher, feeding the cat, taking out the trash, etc
Reading back it seems like a lot but their three chores take them like 15 minutes and I think it’s teaching important life skills
This system is working well for us because it’s it requires no preplanning on my part and it’s easy to assign tasks that are age appropriate. And also, it’s truly HELPFUL so as long as my expectations are realistic.
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@bees_knees: This is a great suggestion, thank you! I'm going to check out this podcast. This sounds totally manageable.
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@bees_knees: @caitcat: Plus one, I just downloaded like 34 episodes of this podcast.
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@caitcat: @erinbaderin: One if my fav podcasts, I love her!
ETA sometimes I make the “chore” silly, like do a song and dance about how much you love your mom
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@bees_knees: I will have to check out this podcast!
This system is working well for us because it’s it requires no preplanning on my part and it’s easy to assign tasks that are age appropriate. And also, it’s truly HELPFUL so as long as my expectations are realistic.
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