parenting

Embracing the times…

April 5, 2011 by Sara Haynes 7 Comments
As parents Chris and I feel it is so important to teach our children responsibility.
They were taught to do things for themselves at a very early age (they all started dressing themselves before age 2.)
We also expect them to help out around the house. They clean up their toys, make their own beds, clean up their dishes and put away their own laundry.

As they get older we are starting to expect even more out of them. One way that we decided to motivate our 7 yr old was by setting up a job chart for him on the fridge. Every night we would go through his day and place a magnet on the fridge corresponding with a job completed. We decided that each chore would earn him a dime {are we cheap?!}

Anyways, he really responded to this and has been very diligent about completing his chores in order to get his magnets {and money!}

But then I heard of this amazing new FREE resource for families. And so we switched to this. Our boy ADORES our new system…..

It is SO awesome. Basically you take some time and set up your child’s chore list on the site. Then your child earns points {determined by you} for every chore completed. They get their very own log in {our son’s favorite part!} and get to check off the chores they complete for the day.

Now friends, if you’re cool….
and only if you’re VERY COOL you will add funky pictures like these as your profile log-in pictures:


AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Pure Awesome.

I laugh every time I log in .
I laugh every night I get the email update of our son’s completed chores.
I laugh and laugh and laugh.

Anyways, the site is linked up to amazon so you can set up a little “store” for your child and when he/she has earned enough points they choose items from that store. It is super motivating for them to see how many points it’ll take to buy something they want. In addition to items from amazon you can customize the site to offer other rewards such as time with dad, or an ice cream cone, going to a movie or video game time. The site also allows your child to allocate their points to “spend”, “save” or “give”.

L.O.V.E that part.

So far, we’ve just set up our son, but I think we may add our girls to it soon. Miss A is turning 4 this week and we’ve already started talking about how 4 year olds “get” to do more chores 🙂

Anyways, if you have little ones old enough to go on the computer check out “My Job Chart“.
My house has never looked better.
Hey, I knew there was a reason we had 4 kids….
😉

How do you motivate your kids to help out?
Do you have other fun ideas for teaching little ones about the value of a dollar?
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