After I posted this video on Instagram I got several inquiries about our chore system. I figured this was the best place to post about what works for us with chores.
We've tried AT LEAST 5 or 6 different chore systems since our oldest kids were old enough to comprehend chores and offer some help around the house. Elizabeth is 9 and the twins are 7, so we've been at this chore thing for about 4-5 years. Just when I'd think we'd found the holy grail of chores, life would happen, Luke and I would forget to implement it and it would flop like a dead fish. My point is, we've failed, a lot.
But finally, FINALLY we have a system that works. For now.
I've decided to break this into two parts because I REALLY BELIEVE that this first part is a big reason why our system has worked so well and lasted. So, bear with me. Part 2 will follow soon. But, first, read this:
Here's where I think we messed up a lot in the beginning, you (and your spouse) need to decide WHY you want your kids to do chores. Aside from the fact that you desire a clean house and your children can provide free child labor, what are your hopes with a well executed chore system?
For us, these were the big ones:
* There's a lot of us. We make a lot of (big) messes. Luke and I were ragged from doing all the cooking/cleaning/housekeeping/laundry/parenting and our house was a perpetual wreck (like, not just toys strung amuck or dishes in the sink - DIRTY). We needed help. Plus, our kids live here too. The last thing we want is to raise entitled kids who think that everyone should serve them all of the time. Responsibility is learned by having things you are responsible for.
* We want our children to know and understand the value of hard work.
* We wanted to be able to take pride in our home. It may not be the most immaculately decorated house in the world, but a clean house is one to be proud of, in our opinion. When our chore chart doesn't flow smoothly, our home is habitually a wreck. Our family (even our kids) enjoy having company and friends over. When the house is messy we are all embarrassed by our home. It's not fun to have company over, often on short notice on our part, when your house is always messy.
* Luke and I can more readily enjoy our children, spend time doing things they enjoy and feel like our home is a place of refuge, not stress, when our home is tidy and everyone does their part. Luke comes home from work less stressed, I yell a lot less, we can do fun projects together or play football in the yard, or roast marshmallows, whatever, when the inside of the home has been cleaned that day.
* Luke and I set appropriate expectations for what our home should look like. After all, we have almost 8 children ages 9 years and younger. Our house shouldn't look like it belongs in a magazine. It should look like children live here! Messes are to be expected. When our children help clean up, it won't be perfect. But it will be better than it was before and we can gradually help them get better and faster at their chores which results in one step closer to "perfect" than before.
So what are your goals for chores?
When our children were really young, our main goal was to teach our children to help out, take responsibility, and see that even as a child they can do something to help their family and be proud of themselves when they accomplish a task. Now that some of ours are older, we expect more.
For example, when Ella's chore is to make her bed, we are perfectly fine with it looking like this:
We've shown Ella (3 years) how to make her bed and this is her very best effort. And her best effort is good enough for now.
But for Ashlee (7 years), when her chore says to make her bed, we expect much more. Her bed should look more like this:
When it doesn't, we remind her that she didn't do her best and ask her to try again. Our expectations and even our goals change as our children get older.
A few weeks ago our children were grumbling and complaining about doing their chores. Nearly every time I announced it was chore time, wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued. So, I had a quick family meeting off the cuff. I had already tried yelling, getting angry, making threats and none of those things worked (shocking, isn't it?). I realized I hadn't sat the kids down in a while and reminded them why we need them to do their chores.
I told them all very simply, "When you do your part around the house, our home runs more smoothly. When the laundry is put away, the floors are swept, the dishes are not piled high in the sink and your bedrooms are clean, it gives us more time to spend as a family. Daddy comes home and enjoys his house rather than having to start another job after he's worked all day.
When you don't help out, then it makes life more stressful for myself and your Dad. And right now, our lives are stressful enough. We can't do it all, so we need help. If you are not willing to cheerfully help us around the house then we will have to hire someone to help us. But Daddy only makes a certain amount of money. So, if we hire help, we would have to take that money from another area. The only area that money can come from right now is your extra activities. So, if you decide you cannot help cheerfully, then we will use the money from horse riding lessons, karate, ballet and gymnastics to hire someone to help clean our house. It's really your choice."
We've not had much grumbling and complaining since that day. And I didn't tell our kids that as a threat. I was totally serious. I explained it to the kids calmly and matter-of-factly because it's true. Luke and I cannot do it all and we do need help. (And if you think you can do it all, Momma, you're kidding yourself. And doing an injustice to your children.) They can choose to bless their family by helping and in return receive blessings or they can choose to not bless and reap the consequences from that choice. (One child did lose the privilege of their extra activity one week for having a T-total meltdown when asked to redo a chore that was only half-way done. Life lessons, friends. It was hard on Momma, too.)
Kids have the ability to understand much more than we give them credit for.
Second, we used to have a more complex system where people rotated chores each week. And maybe one day we will try that again. But for now, and with our children, we've found that giving each of our kids a set list of chores that stays the same each week makes it easier for them to accomplish their jobs more quickly and with more efficiency. After all, how you feel if each week you went to work and you had to learn your job all over again? What if your job changed each week, yet your boss expected proficiency upon demand? That seemed stressful to me, especially for our children at the ages they are. Yet, I do know families who have a rotating chore chart and it works beautifully. For them. Not so much for us. Plus, when our kids do a chore week in and week out they get good at it. Ashlee can clean a bathroom in 5 minutes flat. As it gets easier for her, I add one tiny thing to make the bathroom sparkle just a little bit more. It's not so overwhelming for her and in turn, the bathroom is one step closer to the kind of clean I really desire. Win-win!
Finally, (for this post) choose age appropriate chores for your children. I'll go into this in further detail in the next post, but this was key for us. It's a balancing act to figure out when a child's chore is too easy or too hard. For a long, long time Elizabeth's chore (she's 9 years) was feeding the dog. She enjoyed it so it stayed her chore for much longer than it probably should have. But finally, she passed that chore off to Ella and, GET THIS, she was the one who got to show Ella how to correctly feed the dog! Elizabeth enjoyed the time of teaching and Ella enjoyed the thrill of being in charge of something a "big kid" used to do. Ella aspires to do it well because it was a big kid job and Elizabeth is proud be a teacher.
It boils down to setting a foundation for your family, a tone, of what the purpose of chores are in your home. We want our kids to feel empowered by accomplishing a job all on their own and doing it well! We want them to see that they are able to bless us just by doing simple things. We want them to know that when we all work together, we can accomplish big goals (like having the house clean in under an hour)!
What are your goals for your family with your children doing chores? I'd love to hear your reasons and ideas!
We've tried AT LEAST 5 or 6 different chore systems since our oldest kids were old enough to comprehend chores and offer some help around the house. Elizabeth is 9 and the twins are 7, so we've been at this chore thing for about 4-5 years. Just when I'd think we'd found the holy grail of chores, life would happen, Luke and I would forget to implement it and it would flop like a dead fish. My point is, we've failed, a lot.
But finally, FINALLY we have a system that works. For now.
I've decided to break this into two parts because I REALLY BELIEVE that this first part is a big reason why our system has worked so well and lasted. So, bear with me. Part 2 will follow soon. But, first, read this:
Here's where I think we messed up a lot in the beginning, you (and your spouse) need to decide WHY you want your kids to do chores. Aside from the fact that you desire a clean house and your children can provide free child labor, what are your hopes with a well executed chore system?
For us, these were the big ones:
* There's a lot of us. We make a lot of (big) messes. Luke and I were ragged from doing all the cooking/cleaning/housekeeping/laundry/parenting and our house was a perpetual wreck (like, not just toys strung amuck or dishes in the sink - DIRTY). We needed help. Plus, our kids live here too. The last thing we want is to raise entitled kids who think that everyone should serve them all of the time. Responsibility is learned by having things you are responsible for.
* We want our children to know and understand the value of hard work.
* We wanted to be able to take pride in our home. It may not be the most immaculately decorated house in the world, but a clean house is one to be proud of, in our opinion. When our chore chart doesn't flow smoothly, our home is habitually a wreck. Our family (even our kids) enjoy having company and friends over. When the house is messy we are all embarrassed by our home. It's not fun to have company over, often on short notice on our part, when your house is always messy.
* Luke and I can more readily enjoy our children, spend time doing things they enjoy and feel like our home is a place of refuge, not stress, when our home is tidy and everyone does their part. Luke comes home from work less stressed, I yell a lot less, we can do fun projects together or play football in the yard, or roast marshmallows, whatever, when the inside of the home has been cleaned that day.
* Luke and I set appropriate expectations for what our home should look like. After all, we have almost 8 children ages 9 years and younger. Our house shouldn't look like it belongs in a magazine. It should look like children live here! Messes are to be expected. When our children help clean up, it won't be perfect. But it will be better than it was before and we can gradually help them get better and faster at their chores which results in one step closer to "perfect" than before.
So what are your goals for chores?
When our children were really young, our main goal was to teach our children to help out, take responsibility, and see that even as a child they can do something to help their family and be proud of themselves when they accomplish a task. Now that some of ours are older, we expect more.
For example, when Ella's chore is to make her bed, we are perfectly fine with it looking like this:
We've shown Ella (3 years) how to make her bed and this is her very best effort. And her best effort is good enough for now.
But for Ashlee (7 years), when her chore says to make her bed, we expect much more. Her bed should look more like this:
When it doesn't, we remind her that she didn't do her best and ask her to try again. Our expectations and even our goals change as our children get older.
A few weeks ago our children were grumbling and complaining about doing their chores. Nearly every time I announced it was chore time, wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued. So, I had a quick family meeting off the cuff. I had already tried yelling, getting angry, making threats and none of those things worked (shocking, isn't it?). I realized I hadn't sat the kids down in a while and reminded them why we need them to do their chores.
I told them all very simply, "When you do your part around the house, our home runs more smoothly. When the laundry is put away, the floors are swept, the dishes are not piled high in the sink and your bedrooms are clean, it gives us more time to spend as a family. Daddy comes home and enjoys his house rather than having to start another job after he's worked all day.
When you don't help out, then it makes life more stressful for myself and your Dad. And right now, our lives are stressful enough. We can't do it all, so we need help. If you are not willing to cheerfully help us around the house then we will have to hire someone to help us. But Daddy only makes a certain amount of money. So, if we hire help, we would have to take that money from another area. The only area that money can come from right now is your extra activities. So, if you decide you cannot help cheerfully, then we will use the money from horse riding lessons, karate, ballet and gymnastics to hire someone to help clean our house. It's really your choice."
We've not had much grumbling and complaining since that day. And I didn't tell our kids that as a threat. I was totally serious. I explained it to the kids calmly and matter-of-factly because it's true. Luke and I cannot do it all and we do need help. (And if you think you can do it all, Momma, you're kidding yourself. And doing an injustice to your children.) They can choose to bless their family by helping and in return receive blessings or they can choose to not bless and reap the consequences from that choice. (One child did lose the privilege of their extra activity one week for having a T-total meltdown when asked to redo a chore that was only half-way done. Life lessons, friends. It was hard on Momma, too.)
Kids have the ability to understand much more than we give them credit for.
Second, we used to have a more complex system where people rotated chores each week. And maybe one day we will try that again. But for now, and with our children, we've found that giving each of our kids a set list of chores that stays the same each week makes it easier for them to accomplish their jobs more quickly and with more efficiency. After all, how you feel if each week you went to work and you had to learn your job all over again? What if your job changed each week, yet your boss expected proficiency upon demand? That seemed stressful to me, especially for our children at the ages they are. Yet, I do know families who have a rotating chore chart and it works beautifully. For them. Not so much for us. Plus, when our kids do a chore week in and week out they get good at it. Ashlee can clean a bathroom in 5 minutes flat. As it gets easier for her, I add one tiny thing to make the bathroom sparkle just a little bit more. It's not so overwhelming for her and in turn, the bathroom is one step closer to the kind of clean I really desire. Win-win!
Finally, (for this post) choose age appropriate chores for your children. I'll go into this in further detail in the next post, but this was key for us. It's a balancing act to figure out when a child's chore is too easy or too hard. For a long, long time Elizabeth's chore (she's 9 years) was feeding the dog. She enjoyed it so it stayed her chore for much longer than it probably should have. But finally, she passed that chore off to Ella and, GET THIS, she was the one who got to show Ella how to correctly feed the dog! Elizabeth enjoyed the time of teaching and Ella enjoyed the thrill of being in charge of something a "big kid" used to do. Ella aspires to do it well because it was a big kid job and Elizabeth is proud be a teacher.
It boils down to setting a foundation for your family, a tone, of what the purpose of chores are in your home. We want our kids to feel empowered by accomplishing a job all on their own and doing it well! We want them to see that they are able to bless us just by doing simple things. We want them to know that when we all work together, we can accomplish big goals (like having the house clean in under an hour)!
What are your goals for your family with your children doing chores? I'd love to hear your reasons and ideas!