Chores!! - Richardson,TX

My Birth-Sister is married to a pediatrition. They use a point system and started as each child became three years old. Of course as the children become older you have to change it to fit your needs.

Just to describe it -- but keep it simple:
Each child starts with a certain amount of points. Each offense deducts points -- each good thing (picking up after self, doing your assigned chores (including helping w/their laundry), adds points. Where ever you are in the point system determines what you are allowed to do... tv time, computer time, anything fun that they like to do... but if the points are too low then they are limited and eventually punished by spending time in room etc.

I thought, when she started this, that there would be no way this would work. Well it did - even with her 3 year old. She has now 6 kids at home ages 5, 10, 14, 16, 19, 21. It works for all the kids. Of course the main punishment for the 19 & 21 year old is no car.

She and her husband's point system was on the internet at one time. I'll ask her the next time I talk w/her if it's still floating out there somewhere.

A. Lynn

Hello K.! Love and Logic is a great resource for this topic. I started it about 8 months ago, and it is AMAZING!! I don't even have to tell my 4 year old to pick up toys anymore. She does it on her own. There are many Love and Logic books out (by Jim Fay and Charles Fay) and I highly recommend this philosophy. Let me know if you have more questions.

Good luck!
A.

Hi K.,
I saw in FamilyFun (I love this magazine) a couple of ideas:
**make dice blocks and on each side write a chore...they roll the dice to see what chore they do that day, week, or however you are organizing it.
**Use a magnetic dry erase board with a line dividing the middle. Have magnets that each name the child's responsibilities. One side of the board is "Responsibilities to do" and the other is for the pieces as the tasks are completed. This provides a tactile element in that as the child picks up his room he would then find that piece and put it in the other column.
**If you are thinking of doing an allowance, change it to be a commission based earning instead of just giving it. This way the child learns things are earned not just given all the time.

Just a few ideas,
Good luck,
K.

I have started putting my 4 year olds toys in "time-out" until Sunday if he does not clean them up. If he misses them over the course of the week he will remember to clean them up when he gets them out of time-out and starts playing with them again.

On another moms question about this I told her about a thing my ex boyfriends parents did. Each kid had certian chores and responsibilites from the 3 year old on up. Each thing had a price (even putting your bookbags, jackets, etc where they belong when you get home from school) If you did it you got the $$$ for it, if your sibling did it THEY got the $$$. So instead of fighting mom about cleaning they were trying to beat eachother to everything to get more $$$. Pretty soon the older ones always put their stuff away so the younger ones wouldnt get their precious play time $$$. :o) It also taught the younger ones how to help AND gave everyone something to bargin with. Like one teenage boy wanted extra $$$ for something special so asked his siblings what chores he could take to earn the extra $$$. It took a little bit to get used to but once they did it worked great!

Also, your idea about getting rid of toys works too! I remember a big trash bag being taken to my room. I had to drag it back in from the curb and put it all away if I wanted to keep it lol.

Hi there!

I use a combo of things.

My daughter gets a quarter for every chore she does, which at the moment is 6.
My boys have 3 chores each and they get ten cents a piece.
At the end of the month, we go to Wal Mart ot Target and they are allowed to buy what they want with their money. Or they can save it for the next month and get a bigger item.

Also we play music on clean days, which are Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We take turns each of those days picking a CD of choice. The kids will go around the house singing their songs and dancing and putting up their toys and/or helping me.

I also rotate their toys evey 3 months. I found that if they had the same toys to look at every day and every month that they started to take less care of it.

I hope this helps!