Our family is far from perfect when it comes to encouraging our children to help around the house. However, I am on a never ending quest to raise responsible, independent, self-sufficient children. One technique I can assure you does not work is nagging! Believe me I’ve tried it over and over again. One day I will finally learn this lesson.
After many years of teaching in public school and now homeschooling, one important lesson I have learned is children like to help and children like taking on responsibilities. These are a few of the ideas that have worked in my classrooms and home . . .
1. We do Use the Six Letter Word: Chores!
- Everyone in our family has a job.
- Daddy works outside of our home and also helps take care of our home.
- Mommy works at home teaching homeschool and taking care of our family.
- The children also have the responsibility of helping take care of our family.
- The children call their family responsibilities jobs.
- We talk about how everyone in our family works as a team to help take care of our family.
- When everyone works together our family runs more smoothly and is more happy.
- FREE printable Reward Punch Card coming later in post.
2. We Make the Family Jobs a Routine
- I post our morning jobs and nighttime jobs cards and the children are required to complete their jobs without Mommy nagging.
Print these FREE cards: My Morning Jobs
Original Post: Back to School with Morning Jobs
Print these cards FREE: My Nighttime Jobs
Original Post: Helping Children Transition Back to School
3. The Children Help Take Care of our Family
- The children help with little cleaning jobs around the house.
- We start with simple things like sorting the laundry, clearing the table, putting away the flatware.
- MacGyver has graduated to tasks such as taking the trash and recycle to the curb and cleaning the kid’s bathroom.
- I’ve posted cards with little cleaning jobs that help our family.
Print these cards FREE: Helping Hands Jobs
Original Post: Little Helping Hands, Math, Sorting, Learning
4. The Children are Rewarded for Their Jobs
Print this FREE homeschool money: Homeschool Money
Original Post: Positive Reinforcement for Children at home and in the classroom
5. The Children Save for Special Treats and Toys
- We do not buy our children toys. We let them earn money and they purchase their own toys and special treats.
- MacGyver, age 9, is currently saving his punch cards / money to purchase a camera.
Original Post: Children, Money, Saving and Spending: Math in the Real World
Original Post: Math in the Real World (How to Count Money)
Reward Punch Card
Alrighty then, when I sat down to write this post my main point was going to be the addition of this Reward Punch Card to our family jobs system. But I felt like I had to explain how our family jobs system actually works. At this point in the post, I feel like I’ve reached information overload. (I’m trying to work on my long-winded personality.) So I’ll hit a few bullet points and link the FREE printable. Next week, I’ll write a quick post explaining how we are using our new Reward Punch Card.
- MacGyver, age 9, receives a punch for each cleaning job he does for our family.
- After 10 punches MacGyver redeems his punch card for $1.00.
- MacGyver is saving his money to purchase a camera; consequently, he is motivated to help around the house.
- I guess our Reward Punch Card is a bit like an allowance system.
Print these cards FREE: Reward Punch Card
See you next week for more ideas on organizing a jobs system and tips for different ways to use the Reward Punch Card . . .
Life with Jeannine
sharing at:
{ 1 trackback }
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I love this! I’m always struggling with getting the boys to do their chores. I feel like I nag more and more, and you’re definitely right…it doesn’t work! It only makes me and them more frustrated. I’ve started using a sticker incentive chart. They get stickers for school work, good attitudes, chores, etc.
Interesting ideas. In both families where we grew up we were not rewarded (paid) for chores, and we prefer to use a checklist system where she has to do her set list for a day. The reward is usually a computer time and consequence for failure is lack of thereof. So far it works relatively well (some days better than others
)
I think it is important to empower children to be responsible. Children like to help but too often we nag rather than inspire them to help. I’m personally working on less nagging and more inspiration.
Great tips, and I love your chore cards! Thanks for linking up to Learning Laboratory