Chores/Allowances, etc.

[woolybear]

I have never been really good at organizing chores with my kids (or even myself:001_smile:). So basically, I have asked them to help when needed and that is pretty much it. I have tried chore charts, but mostly I can't maintain it. I have suggested to dc to connect it to an allowance (which they currently don't get either) but older ds was actually very against this--both the chores being connected and saying he thought his allowance should be more (based on what one of his friends gets)!! That just bothered me so much I said forget the whole thing then.

 

Well, he just came up to me with the idea of his doing the dishes and being paid for it. I didn't really like that. I know some people feel that chores and allowance shouldn't be connected. I'm not sure what I feel about it. However, my thinking was having him do several chores weekly (including daily dishes) and giving him an allowance based on the chores being done.

 

My question is: other than dishes, what do you all consider appropriate chores for a soon to be (2-3 months) 10 yo boy? I thought of taking out the garbage. Other than that, I'm not sure.

 

So, thoughts? Thanks, hive.

 

Woolybear

[milovany]

I wouldn't pay for chores if he's never been committed to doing chores without pay first.

 

In our house we do "zone chores" -- the house is divided into zones and the kids are each responsible for one zone each week. There's a list of what needs to be done for each and they work on it at 4 p.m. daily. They also rotate through dish duty -- one person is responsible for all dish washing and putting away for one day at a time.

 

Our 10yos participates in all this -- plus he's in charge of taking garbage out (to the big garbage outside). All of this is with no pay.

[Mrs Mungo]

We give a weekly allowance to our kids. It is tied to chores in the sense that they have chores and nobody gets paid until chores are finished. They must be finished in a timely fashion throughout the week and the final ones, like cleaning rooms, are completed on Saturday morning. Not doing chores is not an option. Allowance makes my life much easier because it cuts down on all the begging for this or that when we are out.

 

My eldest receives $20/week.

 

Her chores include (but are not limited to): cleaning her room, doing her laundry, helping put away household laundry, loading the dishwasher, cleaning her bathroom, vacuuming the downstairs and babysitting her siblings.

 

She pays for her phone with her allowance, she pays to go to the movies with her friends and such, she buys her teen magazines, she buys songs on itunes, she buys clothes or other things that she *wants* (we still pay for things she needs).

 

My middle receives $10/week.

 

Her chores include (but are not limited to): cleaning her room, helping with laundry, helping take care of pets (including poop duty), general tidying downstairs, vacuuming upstairs, unloading the dishwasher, cleaning the bathroom she shares with her brother, vacuuming upstairs and cleaning the kitchen counters.

 

She is my fashion maven. Most of her money goes to clothing and accessories.

 

My youngest receives $5/week.

 

His chores include (but are not limited to): cleaning his room, tidying upstairs, cleaning the bar, clearing and wiping down the table, feeding pets, helping take care of pets, tidying the school room, emptying all of the little trashcans around the house and taking out the recycling.

 

He mostly buys legos, I sometimes chip in another dollar or two, if he's a little short.

[woolybear]

Just giving this a little bump....love to see some more replies.:)

[Peela]

My kids get $20 a week from their dad for allowance- but he did that so that he could take money OFF them for not doing chores. So, they dont get paid for doing their chores- but they do get a penalty for not doing them. Dh wanted something over them, because getting them to do their chores can be a trip- they "forget" so easily. It works quite well.

 

I also pay them for helping me do my cooking job. I have about a dozen(sometimes more) people over for lunch twice a week- it is related to dh's work. One kids helps me set the table, serve and cleans up afterwars- about 45 minutes work- for $10. So they potentially get $30 a week, plus their part time jobs. They are older though.

 

Jobs for a 10 year old- dishes, unpacking and packing dishwasher, wiping bathroom sink and cleaning the mirror in there, sweeping inside and outside, dusting (my kids love to dust!), vacuuming the middles, weeding, feeding pets etc

 

One thing I like to do is set aside half an hour on Mindays or Saturdays and we all get assigned jobs- and between the 3 of us we dust and vacuum and clean the bathrooms and toilets.

 

If you, like me, find it hard to be consistent with getting kids to do chores, a good way to do it is to a) only start with one chore at a time, and get that habit going before adding too much and b) have a daily chore time when everyone helps- then you can supervise and teach them HOW to do various jobs, which is important. c) get chores done first thing in the morning before school starts - that may not work for eveyone, but its the only way it works here.

 

If it werent for dh's strictness around chores I would probably have to find a diferent system for us. He is around a lot and definitely notices when the kids don do their chores, so he is consistent with them. For me it would be harder to maintain that consistency, just for the way I am. I can barely be consistent doing my own chores, let alone supervising my kids :)

[HerdingCats]

We have tried various plans and methods, which all of us (including me) have dropped the ball on. What I have fallen into sort of by happenstance is the current system which has been the most effective of all chore-wise. The money system we have is totally separate. We have been paying money for some school work instead of an allowance. It is mainly tied to percentage correct on math page, timely completion of school-work, putting books and items away correctly, and personal goal items. This has been marginally successful. The kids can earn from 5-7 dollars a week this way. They like having money, but I have found something far more motivating to use for chores.

We are on limited non-school related screen time around here. The way this works in our house is they have a certain allotment of tokens they can spend each week on video games and television. Since we instituted this I had been just giving them their coins each week without anything being required to get them. Well, the spring weather this year prompted me to initiate a screen "fast" so they would spend more time outside for a few weeks before the days get hot and humid. So, no coins have been given out the past couple of weeks....BUT, I have been in a jam this week! We have taken a spring break from school and I have had to spend a lot of time getting ready for my brother's wedding this weekend and have had to be out doing errands and shopping and what-not. I've needed them to help out with household chores, so I've offered to pay them token coins for jobs around the house. Well, they are now trying to FIND things to do each day to earn a coin. They vacuumed and mopped the screened-in porch today which had about a 3-inch layer of pollen and dirt, HAPPILY, for a 30-min screen time token!! They have offered to do dishes, cleaned bathrooms, and folded clothes with no complaining. I am thinking I have really stumbled onto something ;)! When in the past I have connected the chores to allowance, there wasn't enough motivation on their part or organization on my part to make things work consistently. I like this method of just calling it out as I need things done! I don't know if this will help your situation if you are looking to make your kids intrinsically motivated to do chores just because they ought to. I am at a loss as to how to do that! :lol:

[Mergath]

I lived in a foster home for a time when I was younger, and their system worked pretty well. We had minor weekday chores (making your bed before school, keeping your room neat, etc.) and more major weekend chores (vacuuming the house, dusting everything, scrubbing down the bathrooms). You didn't get your allowance if you didn't do your weekday chores, and you couldn't leave on the weekend until you did your weekend chores. We always got everything done.

[woolybear]

Hmmmm....you all have given me a lot to think about. I think I will start small/simple. Ds actually suggested the dishes and I've added the garbage going out. I haven't yet worked out the when on the dishes. We have a lot here.:001_huh:

 

Still thinking on this and on what all of you have said.

Thank you.

Woolybear

[NanceXToo]

I don't have set chores that my kids have to do every day. It's more of an attitude that when I ask for help with something, they will help me. So sometimes I'll unload the dishwasher by myself. Other times I'll ask my 9 y/o to come in and help. I'll ask them to pick up their own toys and put away their own laundry. Sometimes I'll ask one of them to take the garbage out. To help carry groceries in. To sweep the floor or run the vacuum. And sometimes I just do those things myself. They do help set and clear the table most nights for dinner. I just kind of have everyone pitch in as needed rather than coming up with charts and lists and having the extra task of enforcing whether this or that was done. I find the way I do it to be easy enough and not stressful.

 

I see allowance as separate from chores, personally (I know everyone's different). That if my kids get an allowance, they get it because they are part of this household so they share in a small part of this household's income, mostly so they can learn to manage their money and because it's nice for a kid to have a little spending money and that's something I can provide for my kids.

 

If they want to earn EXTRA money because say they are saving for something bigger, then they might come and say "Can I do extra chores to earn extra money" and then I might try to think of things to have them do that I wouldn't ordinarily make them do, like helping to clean out and wash the car or helping me clean out a closet or having them go dust all the banisters or get down on the kitchen floor with a damp rag and spot clean it or whatever I can think of.

[teamturner]

I'm still figuring out how to do the allowance thing myself. I don't want it totally tied to chores as we expect chores to be done because families work together. We have deducted money from allowances for not doing their chores but that didn't exactly work if I didn't keep track of it. The way it's evolved lately is they don't get to go out and play with their friends until all their chores are done. Sometimes I excuse them from some if we've had a particularly busy day and they can catch up on Saturday morning. They don't have too many regular chores on Sat. and none on Sunday. I have a chart and we work on different zones each day. They also put away their laundered clothes when I have them ready.

 

Here are the chores that my 8 and 10 year olds do:

 

empty dishwasher, feed dog, set table, sweep and vacuum floors, dust furniture, clean toilets, wipe off bathroom counters, windex glass, pick up clutter, set the table, clean up their rooms, pick up toys from the yard, pick up after dog in the yard, take out trash, and empty the recycling bin.

 

My dh pays my boys extra for helping him with the yard. They can also earn extra money by washing the car and vacuuming it out and cleaning window blinds.

[woolybear]

Well, so far ds has been way more amenable to doing all the "extras" we ask him to do just to help out. He used to groan for many of these. These include taking out the compost, helping to put laundry away, helping with the firewood.

 

His change in attitude is a pleasure and it's nice not to make all of these his regular chores, just to be able to ask for help as needed. I am finding (one week now,lol) that the more the kids are helping me out, the more I am willing to help them with tasks I might not otherwise have done. I think it's reasonable for it to go both ways. It's just that in the past I have not had enough help or a good attitude consistently that I wouldn't be as willing to help them.

 

This is better so far. Still feeling my way around though.

Wooly

[dirty ethel rackham]

We don't pay for chores - they are just part of living in a family. On rare occasions, I have paid for some things that are what I would consider above and beyond normal responsibility. I have done a chore chart, but it is more a daily routine list. Each child has a weekly chart that I laminated, so that it is reusable. The items are broken up by time of day, i.e. morning routine, lunch-time routine, afterschool routine, after dinner routine and bed-time routine. We have fallen off the wagon lately because my oldest has an online class that starts at 8 am so that kind of messed up our old routine. We really need to get back to this as I feel our house is falling apart:) I am considering making another one that is a rotating chore chart for things like dishes, which no one wants to do every night. I keep the lists on the fridge and we use a wet-erase marker.

 

About what is appropriate - that would be different for each family. All my kids learned to wipe down a bathroom at around 6. I use non-toxic cleaners and they love spray bottles. I made a laminated list and taught them how to do it. I expect them to do a daily (or every other day) wipe down of the bathroom. They can sweep floors, do dishes, take out garbage, wipe down a kitchen, take laundry to and from laundry room and sort clothing. clean up after themselves. I can't think of too many chores that a 10 yo cannot be taught how to do. Now as far as the quantity of chores, I would make sure that they are things that can be done in a reasonable amount of time. If I made a 6 course meal, I would not expect a 10 year old to do all the dishes by himself:). I wouldn't want to do them my self:).

 

About allowances, my kids do get an allowance, but I often forget to pay them and they forget to ask (they are not very money oriented.) If they remind me, then I make sure that I have the correct types of bills for it. I pay them half their age per week (but I pay them monthly.) They tithe 10% to charity, half goes in the bank for long-term savings and half is discretionary spending. As they entered their teen years, they use more of their discretionary spending for their own activities - going to the movies with friends, bringing snacks to game night, boy scout campouts, supplies for 4-H projects.