Chores & Allowance

So, I wanted to give a little information about how we deal with chores and allowance at our house. We have a chore chart for each kid. Kyrie's chart is all chores, while Degen's chart has a few behavior goals we like for him to meet. Each chore/good behavior earns the child a magnet. Each magnet equals a portion of allowance. Both kids earn one quarter per magnet (when Degen was 4, he earned 10 cents per magnet). 

We decided to start a system for allowance because I was tired of the tug-of-war when the kids wanted something. I was tired of saying 'yes' to so much and tired of saying 'no,' too. An allowance system allows us to let the kids make their own decisions (mostly) about purchases. It is also an incentive to do chores, practice piano and/or generally behave. The kids get a "bonus" for holidays or special events (usually 1/2 their age in dollars or full age for birthday/Christmas).

Chores....well, at some point several months ago, I knew that I wanted to the kids to be involved in helping around the house. I also found that they needed motivation.... or at least more motivation than my nagging and lecturing seemed to be providing. The kids were already responsible for making their beds and putting away their laundry. The chore chart and allowance formalized the chores that they already did (or were supposed to be doing) and allowed us to add to the list. 

I clean the house once a week. I started out by having the kids dust and then added more jobs from there. At first, there was some difficulties as the kids had to learn what I expected... as far as quality of work and also the lack of grumbling I required. We spent a lot of time over several months talking about responsibility towards family, cooperation creating a better experience for everyone, gratefulness for what we have, respect for what parents provide and how parents are emotionally affected when children complain when asked to help (ie. "It hurts my feelings when you don't want to help because it makes me feel like I am your maid more than your mom.").

Now, we clean the house once a week together. The kids generally do not complain about cleaning anymore. Some weeks they do a really good job and other weeks not so much. I try to give the kids space to do their chores without me looking over their shoulders and/or critiquing their work, though I praise a good job when I see it and will point out in passing what might need more effort. I do make sure that we are all working at the same time, though not necessarily the same job in the same place. I know that I will need to dust to reach the spots they cannot reach or might miss. I feel that this reminds them that family means that we are all in it together. 

Here are the jobs that the kids do (some weekly and others on an as-needed basis):

make beds

put away personal laundry

put toys away/clean rooms they use

dusting

wipe down kitchen

clean the bathroom

mini-vacuum

put away dishes

take out recycling

set table

*practice piano

Darren & I rarely have cash, and I do not really like the kids having cash-on-hand at this point either. So, we use play money and keep track of their allowance on worksheets attached to their chore charts. When we sit down, the kids take turns counting up their magnets. This process went a long way in teaching Degen how to count by 10s when he was four, and cemented the worth of quarters for Kyrie. The kids count how much money they earned and add that to what money they saved...and subtract the money they spent. Good math happening all around!

This system has worked really well for us and achieved the goals that we have set forth From time-to-time I will change the chores to better represent our expectations. I have plans to increase the worth of magnets to 50 cents when the kids reach age 10. 

This is an example of the chore chart we use.