e’re sure you’ve heard about chore charts before. And you probably thought, “I need to get me one of those.” But then the whole idea of creating a chore chart and holding everyone accountable seems like too daunting of a task. So it gets put on the back burner. Well, take it off the back burner because here are the steps you need to do to set up your family’s chore chart.
Five Easy Steps to Creating a Chore Chart
1. Decide what chores need to be completed daily (dishes, sweeping, dusting, recycling, taking the trash out, cooking meals, etc.) and then decide how and when you want these things getting done. Keep things age appropriate. You don’t want your five-year-old attempting to wash the pots and pans or cooking dinner, but he would probably be great at setting the table for dinner or help load the dishwasher.
2. Make a clear reward system. You could pay an allowance for all chores completed, have a family outing planned when everyone works together and gets their chores done on time and correctly for a certain amount of time, or use a point system where they earn points for each chore completed and then can purchase special little trinkets from a box of treasures you have priced up for them. Sometimes the satisfaction of knowing you have pitched in to help clean a home that you live in and mess isn’t enough, so you need to give other incentives based on what works best for your child or your family.
3. Make it visual and in a central location. You want to make it very clear what everyone is expected to do, so it needs to catch the eye. Use lots of color and make it large and in the central hub of the home (the kitchen is probably a good place for it). Have a place on it to mark off the reward earned and whether or not it has been cashed in.
4. Variety is the spice of life. No one likes doing the same thing over and over again. Of course there are certain things that everyone should be responsible for doing themselves (washing yourself, making your own bed, picking up and putting away your laundry), but the big chores, the ones we’re really talking about that the whole family had a hand in creating the mess for, should be rotated.
One great way to do this is with a chore wheel. Sunday night after dinner the chore wheel gets spun and everyone must complete the chore their name lands on for the whole week. It’s different, it’s exciting, and no one knows what lousy chore they are going to get stuck with next, so it’s fair.
5. Implement it with your family. Explain everything from what you expect them to do when doing the chores to what the rewards and/or consequences will be if they do not do it correctly. Tell them they have to give it three weeks (because three weeks is how long it takes to create a habit) of good, hard, honest work before they begin to complain about the system. Chance are by the end of the three weeks they’ll have forgotten all of their complaints from the first week and will just do it, second nature.
Now go out there and get to work on your chore chart. Hopefully you will find that it’s getting everyone to pitch in and help around the house more often.
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