Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Teaching Tuesday: A new chore system for Luke
9:22 PM | 
Posted by
Kristin |
First thing this summer I created this beauty of a chore chart for Luke.
[insert "oooooohhhs" and "ahhhhhhhs" here]
It worked for a week. Seriously. ONE week. I'm horrible at remembering to remind Luke to do his chores. He's horrible at remembering to do them. Half the time I ended up doing them myself, out of habit. Which totally defeats the purpose of having chores. Right? Right.
So I came up with a new system today. I love it. It lets Luke make his own choices and makes him be responsible for remembering to do the chores. In other words... all pressure off mom! WOOT!
I made a new chart. But it's not really a chart. It's a list of chores that he can choose to do. And each chore is "worth" a certain number of rocks.
He can do all of the chores in one day. He can do nothing for a week. Or ever, really. It's his call. However, his mom and dad (that's us) will only be buying him things for holidays from now on. So if he wants that new Lego City set, he has to work for it. Whoa nelly it's gonna be a hard lesson to learn for him- this little boy who is so used to getting pretty much whatever he wants.
So you're probably wondering what these rocks are? Well, along with the chart (pictured above), we have two jars. Jar #1 is labeled, "rocks waiting to be earned." Jar #2 is labeled, "rocks Luke has earned." Before we started, Jar #1 was jam-packed full of river rocks. Jar #2 was empty. (see below)
We explained to Luke how the new system works. You do a chore, you get X amount of rocks in Jar #2. You don't do the chores, you don't get rocks. (Luke thinks, "Yeah so what's in it for me?) Now, when Jar #2 is full and Jar #1 is empty, Luke gets ten dollars!
Oh I wish you could have seen his eyes light up! He is so motivated right now. He got up and went right to his room and started cleaning.
Now there are some guidelines to this little game we're playing.
1. He has to do the chore on his own... without us asking him to do it. So if we try to walk in his room and can't get past the doorway because of the Lego fort blocking the way and we say, "Luke, you need to clean your room up." No rocks. (Aren't we the meanest parents ever?)
2. After his chore is finished, he has to come to us and tell us. We check it to make sure it's a quality job. THEN he can put his rocks in the earned jar.
3. There are opportunities to earn extra rocks. If he has a particularly good attitude about going to bed, for example, he may get an extra rock. If he offers to help with one of mom and dad's chores and does a superior job, extra rocks.
4. I've guesstimated that the earning time will be about two weeks, if he stays motivated. That's $5 a week, which is actually less than the old chore chart system.
I'm super excited about this... hopefully it will not only teach Luke to take on some household responsibility but also about saving his money and waiting to get something he wants. I'll keep you posted!
[insert "oooooohhhs" and "ahhhhhhhs" here]
It worked for a week. Seriously. ONE week. I'm horrible at remembering to remind Luke to do his chores. He's horrible at remembering to do them. Half the time I ended up doing them myself, out of habit. Which totally defeats the purpose of having chores. Right? Right.
So I came up with a new system today. I love it. It lets Luke make his own choices and makes him be responsible for remembering to do the chores. In other words... all pressure off mom! WOOT!
I made a new chart. But it's not really a chart. It's a list of chores that he can choose to do. And each chore is "worth" a certain number of rocks.
He can do all of the chores in one day. He can do nothing for a week. Or ever, really. It's his call. However, his mom and dad (that's us) will only be buying him things for holidays from now on. So if he wants that new Lego City set, he has to work for it. Whoa nelly it's gonna be a hard lesson to learn for him- this little boy who is so used to getting pretty much whatever he wants.
So you're probably wondering what these rocks are? Well, along with the chart (pictured above), we have two jars. Jar #1 is labeled, "rocks waiting to be earned." Jar #2 is labeled, "rocks Luke has earned." Before we started, Jar #1 was jam-packed full of river rocks. Jar #2 was empty. (see below)
We explained to Luke how the new system works. You do a chore, you get X amount of rocks in Jar #2. You don't do the chores, you don't get rocks. (Luke thinks, "Yeah so what's in it for me?) Now, when Jar #2 is full and Jar #1 is empty, Luke gets ten dollars!
Oh I wish you could have seen his eyes light up! He is so motivated right now. He got up and went right to his room and started cleaning.
Now there are some guidelines to this little game we're playing.
1. He has to do the chore on his own... without us asking him to do it. So if we try to walk in his room and can't get past the doorway because of the Lego fort blocking the way and we say, "Luke, you need to clean your room up." No rocks. (Aren't we the meanest parents ever?)
2. After his chore is finished, he has to come to us and tell us. We check it to make sure it's a quality job. THEN he can put his rocks in the earned jar.
3. There are opportunities to earn extra rocks. If he has a particularly good attitude about going to bed, for example, he may get an extra rock. If he offers to help with one of mom and dad's chores and does a superior job, extra rocks.
4. I've guesstimated that the earning time will be about two weeks, if he stays motivated. That's $5 a week, which is actually less than the old chore chart system.
I'm super excited about this... hopefully it will not only teach Luke to take on some household responsibility but also about saving his money and waiting to get something he wants. I'll keep you posted!
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About Me
- Kristin
- I'm Kristin. Married since 2002 to a super cool guy named Joel. We have a super amazing boy named Luke and a super cuddly pup named McCarthy. I'm not a very consistent blogger (at all) but I do go in spurts. I like to keep people on their edge of their seats. Ha!
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6 comments:
this is awesome Kristin! We tried a sticker chart and it lasted only a week too... I think I may need to figure out something similar to this for Moriah.
LOVE this! Love it!
We started the exact same thing yesterday with our kids!!! I read about it in Family Fun magazine! And our reward is the same as yours $10. Great minds think alike! (except I think I'm the mean mom, because our rocks are a lot smaller and our jars are a lot bigger). :) Oops.
We do something similiar...Where did you make your posters/signs at? Ours are hand written right now because I can not find a printing sight or layout that I like.
Jessica- THAT'S where I read it! I couldn't remember if it was a blog, in a book, in a magazine or what. Thank you!
Shondra- I made them on photoshop. You could also type them up on a word document and add clip art.
oh I'm so on board with this idea!!!!!