{"id":44699,"date":"2019-11-01T08:05:42","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T12:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/?p=44699"},"modified":"2021-02-11T11:22:58","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T16:22:58","slug":"responsibility-chart-with-paid-chore-option","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/responsibility-chart-with-paid-chore-option\/","title":{"rendered":"Responsibility Chart with Paid Chore Option"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post has been a longtime coming. Several months ago I began to see the need for more structure in our days. Not necessarily a strict schedule, but more consistency and predictability of what we expect from the kids. We have always been a believer in chores (as you can see in this post on responsibilities for three year olds<\/a><\/span>… baby Hailey!<\/em> However, our lack of consistency with expectations led us down a rocky road where sometimes asking them to do the simplest thing (can you go put your coat up please?<\/em>) was met with a huff and a whine.<\/p>\n

Not. OK.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"paid<\/p>\n

As my frustration with the resistance to my requests increased, I realized more and more that this wasn’t on the kids, but this was on us. I’m a believer that children will rise to the bar set for them as long as the expectation is expressed clearly and enforced consistently. Consistency was what we were lacking.<\/p>\n

It felt that at times we were raising the most generous and loving humans alive and other times I freaked out thinking that we are spoiling them rotten and ruining them forever. More than once I found myself whispering “if you only knew how good you have it.”<\/p>\n

So between that and the girls’ constant fascination with how to earn money (thank you to our neighbors for buying multiple homemade crafts for a quarter each), led us to commit to making a change in how we do things. In short, we were ready to start exploring the idea of allowance or paid chores, but I wanted to be really careful with how we did it.<\/p>\n

My main hesitancy with introducing a paid chore option was fostering a “will only work for pay” attitude. I wanted to be sure it was clear that we do certain things simply because we are all contributing parts of a family unit. I decided to label these and other self-hygiene-related tasks responsibilities<\/em>. Responsibilities are daily and are always a must-do. Non negotiable.<\/p>\n

However, once their daily responsibilities are completed, they have the option to pick a paid chore (max of one paid chore per day). Each paid chore option is worth $1, (though they could vary by dollar amount as well). I just wanted to keep things simple to start. I have to sign off on the chore upon completion, then they may cross it out on their chart that we keep on the fridge. Pay day is on Sunday, but in order to be paid, they must have completed their responsibilities every day. Then payment must be split between the spend\/save\/give jars, but they may begin with the spend jar, meaning if they do the max chores available, they could have $2 is spend, $2 in save, and $1 in give.<\/p>\n

It sounds a little complex at first, but after a lot of searching, I found the perfect customizable ressonsibility chart layout for only $4<\/a>. There are a lot of designs to choose from<\/a><\/span>, but I wanted one that would print legibly in black and white. I thought about laminating it and letting them use dry erase markers, but I want the chart to be altered easily as we go through a few months of refining the responsibilities and chores of each child.<\/p>\n

\"how<\/p>\n

\"age<\/p>\n

Daily Responsibilities for Age 8 and Age 5<\/h2>\n

Since we chose to do the same personal responsibilities to start, I tried my best to choose expectations that could be met for both a 5 year old and an 8 year old.<\/p>\n