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Chores.
Parents kind of love them and kind of hate them. We love the help, but hate having to nag teaching the kids how to do chores the “right” way.
We struggle with the boys and weekly chores – they do them, but often not to our standards. They forget things. They skip things.
About two months ago, Steve and I decided that managing chores with a chore chart would help to cut down on the stress that was Saturday chore day. Since you truly need to do a little bit every day, they would understand doing daily chores and avoiding losing their entire Saturday to chores. Right?
Enter: The Chore Chart
Set up for three weeks of chores, the kids each have their own lists (none of that, “it wasn’t my chore!”) and checkboxes. They are not allowed to check a box until the chore has been completed.
The boys have about 20 minutes worth of work to do every day, and it seems to have helped! This is tough to manage when you factor in sports and after school activities, but it’s still better than Saturday chores, so I can’t complain. This is the link for the chore chart on Google docs, so help yourself!
Love the chart! Do you do allowance, or is this what is expected as a family member?
Hi Shannan!
We do pay them allowance. I began with $1 for every year of their age, but has changed a little depending on the amount of work they do. Michael has significantly more chores because he has to pay for 1/2 of his iPhone bill every month – he technically gets $20/week, but $10 goes towards his bill. Jack gets $8/week.
Great idea! My parents did a chore chart for us that rotated on a weekly basis so one kid wasn’t stuck always doing the “one” chore they hated. Even though my boys are still rather young, I want to get them started on something like this!
Great chart! I can’t wait till my kids are old enough to read so we can start simple charts like that. Right now I draw pics for them (and I am a horrible artist! Lol) and they have simple/age appropriate chores to help out. Love the detailed chart!
That looks like a great chart! We did chores for awhile and my kids loved them (they were only 5 & 6 at the time). We stopped because of house renovations but hope to pick it back up again soon.
Love the chart. I think I need to institute something because when I ask for a little help, it is a song and dance.
I just made a couple of chore charts for my five and three year old girls. I think it’s a great idea for every family to start.
That is an awesome chart. I need to create something similar when my boys get a little older.
I like your chore chart. I’ve tried several tactics to encourage my grandsons to do simple chores like feed the dogs, make their beds and pick up their clutter. It sometimes gets to be a really stressful for me. The 12 year old claims he has to do more than his brother and of course the 15 year old says the same thing about the younger one.
Hopefully using your chart as a template I can design one that fits our needs. Thank you so much for posting.
Thanks! You can make it editable in Google Docs by going to “File” then “Make a Copy.” That makes your own copy that you can edit without disturbing the original or downloading to Excel. :)