kid’s chores |

Over at Midwest Parents today, Heather asked the question: how do you tame the morning chaos? Her kids are six, four, and brand-spankin’ new—so I’m going to roll back the tape a few years and you’ll all know how anal I really am.

Step 1: Buy a big bright posterboard. Pretend this is a fun project, because kids love it and you need it. On a separate piece of paper, make a list of all of the things your kids can do themselves in the morning, before they come down for breakfast. Ideas: put on clothes, brush teeth, make bed, put away books, turn off the light (please!). Get out your parenting magazines and have your child clip away. Find pictures to represent the “Good-Morning Jobs” and paste them onto the posterboard, with the name of each job printed just beneath. Hang this in their room(s) so they can take a look each morning and start the day off right. See how you can breathe a little easier already?

Step 2: Buy plastic containers to store cereal, that kids can pour themselves without having the entire box dumped on the table. Buy a small pitcher for the fridge and fill it about halfway with milk, again, so they can pour it themselves. My kids were 3 ½ and 5 when I started this, and they did just fine. I was desperate—trying to nurse my baby, and get the other two ready for school. This one little change saved our mornings.

Step 3: When you tuck the kids into bed, do not turn on Wife Swap, peek into Twitter, or see what Land’s End has on sale this week. Do whatever you can to prep for the morning: if you can live with it, let your kids choose their own outfit and take this one right off your own plate; pre-set the breakfast dishes; make sure the cereal & milk pitchers are ready to go; backpacks and shoes—can you find them? If so, choose your poison: twitter away, find out who’s swapping this week, or buy that sweater. If not, find them. You’ll thank yourself in the morning.

Step 4: Please note: I am a total hypocrite to suggest this one, as I have never quite mastered it: get up and take a shower before the kids need to be awake. (If they’re up but don’t need to be, let them play quietly for a few minutes while you jump start your day.) The days I do manage this, things go much more smoothly. I think the hot water melts that mean, grumpy feeling I get the second my alarm goes off. And as for the rest of the days, well, ask my friends Janet and Sharee’; I walked with them this morning–no shower first, still quite grumpy.

And on a final, completely unrelated note, I want to point you to mamabirddiaries, who kindly mentioned me last week, was quoted in an ABC News article about Sarah Palin earlier this week, and is one of the most amusing bloggers around. Enjoy!

When do kids get chores? Do you pay them? How do you set the standard for doing a “good” job? What’s good enough?

As our kids leave baby-hood and begin toddling around after us, the question of chores is inevitable. It’s even one of the questions our pediatrician asks my kids in their annual well-check. “Do you have any jobs you do around the house? What are they?” Please, I silently pray, tell him you do. Help Mommy look good here, boys!

Over the years I have tried about two hundred different methods for assigning chores. I tried one of those store-bought charts for the side of the fridge. I tried setting certain chores for certain days. I tried customizing the list of chores and printing them out at the beginning of the week. None of these were particularly effective for us.

The trouble all boils down to the fact that I simply do not know, on Sunday night, which day I’ll need help folding laundry or watering the plants. In my ideal dream-land, I would mop on Monday, cook ahead on Wednesday, and fold on Friday, but this NEVER actually happens. I plan to mop, but a friend calls for lunch. Discipline? Well, I have lots of it, but not enough to choose mopping over lunch with a friend. Seriously, I have my priorities! I plan to cook and freeze, but I don’t have all the ingredients, so I make a list and it’s so daunting I decide just to grill brats or chicken, instead. And folding, well, who wants to fold? I just try to avoid it.

That said, chores are a part of life for just about all of us, and my boys don’t get a vote in whether they’ll have them, they just will. So after many missteps, I have finally found a method that works for us, and maybe it will work for you, too. But if not, take heart. Check here and here for more ideas—remember, this was not my first try!

FIVE STEPS TO A CLEANER HOUSE: CHORES FOR KIDS

One: Buy a big sheet of posterboard in a color you like. You’ll be looking at it often. I think the baby blue is nice.

Two: Buy one of those clear rolls of contact paper. You’ll use this to laminate your chore cards.

Three: Cut your posterboard into small rectangles & use a sharpie marker to write one chore on each rectangle. I also tried (tried!) to DRAW a picture of the chore, since my youngest was only about 2 or 3 when I made my cards.

Four: Buy magnetic clips, one color per kid, to hold the daily chores on the fridge.

Five: Laminate your cards and help the kids get busy!

The chore card method has worked fabulously well for us. Each morning, I simply sort through the chores & see what needs to be done that day. Water the plants? Nope, it just rained. Sweep off the porch? Oh, please, do it now! Fold or put away laundry? Yep, finally getting to that today. I choose the chores, put them in the clips, & put the clips on the front of the fridge. When the jobs are done, the kids move their clip to the side of the fridge. I think the reason this works is 1) the chores are specific to our family and 2) I can choose them that day—no detailed planning ahead required.

And, no, we do not pay for chores at our house. I buy into the “you’re a part of the family, this is a part of your life” philosophy. When my kids hit 5^th grade, they get a monthly salary, from which they pay for friends’ birthday gifts, school skating trips, etc. But that, my friends, is a different post for a different time.

Have fun cleaning!

-Kirsetin

Category Archives: kid’s chores

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