Chores for your children.....

[Mahonri]

Get them to to everything you can as often as you can.

That's what my folks did. All 7 children have advanced university degrees.

That's what I'm trying to do with my kids.

 

[smom1976]

Quote:
hopefully these two are not connected..

 

[HennysMom]

LOL - guess I should have worded it differently..

didnt have my coffee kick in at that point

 

[AtRendeAcres]

I have 2 left at home (13 &14)

both help bring wood in
both keep fire going all day
both are in charge of their rooms

they take turns with who gets kitchen, livingroom, bathroom & making bread!

we homeschool so this is done through out the day!

 

[Chicken Salad]

Mine started doing their own laundry as soon as they were tall enough to reach the dials. They had to keep their room straight; if mom had to do it because it was let go to unhygenic proportions all the stuff went into trash bags and extra work had to be done to redeem them. They had to keep their stuff picked up in the common areas of the house; same deal with stuff left laying around...it went into mom's closet and had to be redeemed.

We lived in a townhouse so there weren't a lot of outside chores. There were two blocks of chores...1 was vacuuming the commons and trash out on trash days 2x a week. 2 was swamping out bathrooms. These alternated by the month. I tried to do it by the week - but inevitably someone would leave something undone in the hopes that Mom wouldn't notice and the other person would get stuck with it.

 

[Katy]

By the time my kids were 13 they were working in the field driving tractor, helping with cattle chores etc...and had been for several years already.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Mine are 9, 7, 5, 3, and 4 months. The oldest 4 help with EVERYTHING. Even the 3 year old. Once our kids are old enough to walk, we immediately introudce them to farm chores and encourage them to help.

It might be as simple as feeding the chickens or the barn cat or the dogs, etc.

They are responsible for cleaning their own rooms, making their beds, and sorting their own laundry for me to wash.

DD clears the table after eating, but they are all responsible for making sure their own dishes make it into the sink to be washed.

 

[GopherBoyFarms]

My 9yr old son has a chore chart that he has to check his chores off each day, he isnt ever asked to do these chores, he just does them, we depend on him to do them, and he knows that. It's his "job" along with going to school, doing homework, reading for 30 min each day
The chores on the chore chart are:
Feed/water inside cats
Feed /water outside cat
feed /water chickens
scrape perches
clean bedroom/make bed
unload dishwasher
collect eggs and write total in the book
water sunflowers and plant in pots in front of house (in summer)
load 2 boxes of fire wood bring to front porch


then he has his 2 times a week chores
clean bathroom
vaccuum bedroom and hall

Once a week he helps me tidy up the chicken coop and yard

then anything else that is asked of him.

there is a thread like this from a while back
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=94342

 

[chicknmania]

Dishes, taking out trash, critter care, yard and garden help,sometimes laundry; and occasionally they help with cooking. When we clean house I pay them per room, obviously the more they do the more money they make. They don't get any pay for routine stuff...dishes, trash, critter care, food prep, laundry. They have had chores since they were about four or five years old. Everyone lives here, everyone helps.

 

[DawnSuiter]

Quote:
For us that was almost exactly the same, with the exception of the stashing in trash bags or moms closet... if it was the FIRST time we had this issue, I would hold them to be earned back. If it was the SECOND time we had the issue, the items in question went straight to goodwill.

We don't expect her room to be clean, just enough to walk through it, and get to the window in a fire, otherwise messy is fine with me in her room, but not dirty or food dirty you know?

So.. doing her own laundry since she was 7, and somewhere around 11 she started to get lazy about it, but going to school in dirty stinky clothes fixed that right up

she rarely forgets now.. her laundry days are Sat/Sun

She also cleans the bathroom weekly, a deep cleaning.
Cleans ALL the dishes daily unless she's not around
Kitty Litter box daily (hey SHE wanted the cats)
Other than that... household stuff is done as a family, we ALL do it, outside chores, we're all outside, inside chores, we're all inside, working together on the project.

The REAL chore is that my DD does not have "traditional free" time as is received by most children her age. Her free time hours must be earned with 2 weeks of good behavior & cooperation which yeilds her a few hours of freedom. Otherwise, we're home, together taking care of everything a family should be doing, because she lives here is why she has to help... and I also tell her, I should hope that no matter WHO she lives with, she will help out and share all the chores related to that residence.

This excludes personal hobbies, so while she helps with chicken chores if it's a family thing, I don't expect her to care for or maintain anything that is my hobby or interest.

Now that she's in High School we have adjusted to "reality rules" or so I call them.
She earns money now doing EXTRA chores as she has time, and she pays rent on a sliding scale (20% of her income), as well as has to supply her own personal items (shampoo, makeup, toothpaste etc). Provided she does not waste supplies, we will continue to provide everything else supply wise (laundry soap, food, utilities). She also pays $1 for rides to or from somewhere, has to pay her own cell phone bill, and we require 25% of what she earns to go directly into her car savings account. And each report card that is As & Bs only, gets a HUGE $$ bonus, so that's a quarterly incentive like a raise or a bonus to get used to as well.

The rest she's free to do with what she wants, not that after shampoo & stuff that leavs much money, but as I tell her, when she is out on her own, at least she'll know what she can spend & what she can't and she'll spend no time wasting money on things that are not a priority.

The new reality rules are working AMAZINGLY well... because as a teenager, she FINALLY feels in charge of her own life... and we no longer have to answer any "can i go here or do this" questions since she has the means to answer them herself... if she has freedom hours & money of COURSE she can go, if not, then like reality.. no money, no time, then NO GO!