Sienna gets the prize for grumpiest chore avoider. I can ask her nicely to pick up her toys and she will have some excuse as to why she can't do it. Her favourite is "I can't walk. I feel dizzy", or perhaps "I feel a seizure coming. " (she has a real seizure disorder so this really isn't a good thing to say) She is fully capable but it's never fun getting her to do her chores. Fighting about her mess brings me back to Earth Day and the 15 bags of trash my kids pulled out of the woods. The proud looks on their faces when they saw the difference they made.
So many families struggle with chores and getting them done. I have decided that perhaps they just don't like cleaning up their messes. Perhaps we should set up a system where families trade kids for a day and they can clean their friend's room. LOL My bet is that the grumpy kid would be less grumpy with their friend's mom or dad in charge. We could match the kids up according to their messiness just to make it fair. Wouldn't that be fun?! We could still teach "teamwork" and have fun doing it. They like picking up litter in the woods...the gross stuff too...like the beer bottle of pee my teen found. It made everyone laugh, they got grossed out, and believe it or not...we created some wonderful memories that day.
I want to create positive memories around chores. I don't want to be responsible for everything. I am still looking for a good system but have learned a few things over the years...
1) kids are really messy, really messy
2) they think I left the mess
3) they start talking like we had them to fill our lives with cute little SLAVES
4) they prefer to pick up beer bottles of pee rather than the toys in their rooms
5)I have a lot to learn
6) my to-do list is really long and I need to learn how to delegate more.
I am collecting your "tried and true" ideas regarding chores. I will be collecting these and making a top ten "Chore Tips" post very soon. Do you have it all figured out? Does something work well for you? Please email me with your wonderful ideas. I will put together a list and perhaps the neat ideas my readers come up with will help others.
Email your tips to shanka@cogeco.ca
See you soon,
Samantha
Email your tips to shanka@cogeco.ca
See you soon,
Samantha
We make a schedule for cleaning bathrooms, sweeping floors, emptying the dishwasher and doing laundry. We each are on a job for one week and then we rotate it so we're not always stuck with the same chore. I find it helps the kids when they can see it written down. Only my oldest will do all the chores independently. The other 2 still need some help, but they are more willing to do it if they know I'll help. Sometimes there's a little complaining, but it's not too bad.
ReplyDeleteWe also all tidy up anything that's left out at the end of every day. The girls are so used to this and don't complain at all anymore. August is another story, but threatening to get rid of toys or skip bedtime story is usually a pretty good motivator.
For a while we had a chore jar with random chores in it. Whenever the kids felt like it, they could pick one out and do it. This worked for a month or so, but then the novelty wore off. The schedule seems to work better. That way everyone knows exactly what's expected of them.
gah! what happened to my beautiful rant about stupid pingpong ball with chores written on them?!!
ReplyDeleteOh well, nuf said, likely.