HealthyChildren.org recommends guidelines on how to help your child maintain responsibilities.
- Carefully spell out the tasks your child must perform.
- Honest praise form you can be the most effective way of motivating your child and guaranteeing her success.
- Your child may be greatly helped in remembering to do chores if your family life has a structure and routines.
- Schedule weekly family meetings to review your child's progress.
- When your youngster does not complete her chores and other responsibilities, it may be necessary to discipline her.
View the entire article on Chores and Responsibility.
FamilyEducation.com says that
"The skills learned from having family responsibilities include time management, prioritizing tasks, and general organizational abilities."
Read more about The Importance of Chores.
Here is an image of the chore chart I use for my 6-year-old and 3-year-old.
Everyone has responsibilities, regardless of age.
My kids get allowance for the days they complete all of their responsibilities. I like to make sure to call them responsibilities and not chores so that they understand that everyone has responsibilities, regardless of age. It is a commonly used word that they can start using now.
Only pay for completed work.
I only pay them allowance for the days every responsibility is fulfilled because, just like adults, we only get paid when the job is complete.
The sower reaps rewards.
If I complete a job for them, I put a quarter in my wallet, in front of my kids. That way they know that every job needs to get done, and whoever does the job gets paid for it because they did the work.
At every age, it is hard to save money.
Since my kids are still very young, I only pay them one quarter for each completed day of responsibilities. I feel that this is a good way to show children that it is not an easy task to save money.
A Sense of Community.
I make the responsibilities match what each child is capable of. For example, my 3-year-old son cleans under the bunk beds because he is small. So many toys get lost under the bed and someone needs to get them and put them in their rightful place. That is his responsibility or job and he is very proud of it.
Time is our rarest commodity. Once it's gone, we cannot get it back.
I also put one extra responsibility at the bottom of the list, which is not required. The extra responsibility supports a major God-give gift. For example, my daughter has to draw one thing in her sketchbook every day. It is not required, but if she cares to maintain her talent, she will draw one thing, and she does. My son has to practice catching a ball. This optional responsibility shows them the idea of priority in a general sense. The kids realize that they have tasks to do that pay them and need to get done. If they have time left, they do the ones that do not pay. I am not saying that maintaining your talents is not important. I just want them to realize that some things can wait until tomorrow. If maintaining their talents is a high priority to them, they need to manage their time wisely so that they have enough time to complete every task.
As a thank you for visiting RainStain, I will send anyone that follows this blog a full resolution PDF copy of my responsibility chart, customized with your child's name on it. Just follow this blog and send me an email with your gmail account name and the name you would like on your responsibility chart.
Happy Homemaking!
