Chore Chart & A Family Tradition

When we got home from Idaho this summer I knew it was time to establish a more clear system of cleaning and helping around the house. But finding the right chore chart that is appropriate for ages almost 5 and almost 3 takes some thought. After a little pinterest browsing I put together my ideas. I really had to fight the urge to go to the store and by some craft supplies to make it a nice, permanent item to hang on the wall. But reminding myself that chore charts wasn't really high on the list of things to spend money on, and that my chore chart needs would probably change as my family grew, going permanent was not the right answer. So I settled on some cardstock and stickers from the closet. Sometimes as homemakers we forget the purpose of what we are doing and get caught up in making it look pretty or something you will want to show others who come into your home, etc. and we forget that simple really can be better. Anyways, I let my kids each decorate their paper however they wanted. Naturally it has crayon scribbles, aka drawings, and random stickers plastered all over it. I cut out the first letter of their name to stick on it and voila! Chore charts. The boys totally took ownership of their charts and are still excited about them; something I think would have been missed out on had I just made it all fancy and nice myself. And the best part is, when we are done with them I can just throw them away without having another item to clutter the house. Since I am limited on time these days I simply printed out some pictures of chores another nice lady made and put on pinterest. There were a few I wanted to add so I just drew those by hand.
 So here's how it works. All the chores are stuck on the wall above the charts. Each day the boys, with some direction from mom, get to choose what chores they would like to do that day. They think this is great fun and they feel some power by getting to decide themselves what they will do. If they don't choose something that needs to get done that day I just let them know that we need to do that job and I assign it to them. After they finish each chore they take it off their chart and stick it to the wall beneath. Simple.
I am not big on rewarding my children for doing something that needs to be done as part of life. I want them to learn that sometimes we work just because the work needs to be done. Period. So we go with a more natural consequence approach when it comes to the chore chart. When you finish your work for the day, you get to play. If you don't finish your work, you keep doing it until its done. Because not doing your chores is not an option. Again, it is work that needs to be done. Period.
My key to success with all this however is flexibility. Some days we don't do the chore charts at all. Some times we do them each day all week. Sometimes we only choose one or two. Sometimes we choose to do all of them. Life is not a rigid routine (as much as I might like it to be sometimes) and so I don't expect the chore charts to smoothly fit into our life every day. But mornings when we are home, we choose our chores and do our work. If we have somewhere to go, then great! And SOMETIMES the house is clean from the day before and we don't really need to do any chores. Those are rare, but great days.
The biggest challenge of this has been patience on my part. I have always made my kids "help" clean up but it usually looked like me doing most of the work while assigning them small jobs and them following me around. By allowing them to take ownership of the jobs, I have had to step back and let them do it. And I have been really surprised at how well they do. Matthew can make his own bed really well, and he did from the first day! Who knew? If Koyle's job is to clean up the dirty clothes, I might have to stand there and direct him to pick up each item of clothing, but I don't do it myself; I let him get the job done. Not to say I never help though...remember about being flexible. This means that cleaning takes much longer. Of course it would be easier for me to quickly clean up their room while they take a bath like I used to, but the point is to teach them. Teach them how to clean, how to work, how to take responsibility for their own things and space. I often have to remind myself that in a few years I will thank myself for taking the time to teach them how to clean when they were young. All this patient teaching means that most of our morning is spent doing their chores, and then mom still has to squeeze in her own chores (dishes, laundry, my room, etc.)
 But it has been going so well. I couldn't be happier. Some days it feels like pulling teeth and I have to constantly keep them focused and guide them through the whole task. Other days they get right to it and finish quickly and independently. I feel like the good days are starting to outnumber the slow days so I think we are making progress.
And with all this focus on cleaning you would think my house looks great. Not! This helps us stay on top of the basics because that is a constant battle. So....
That brings me to our new family tradition. Many of those "deep cleaning" items got sorely neglected last year while I was pregnant and Justin was super busy. Now, having a baby things aren't much better. So I decided that each Saturday we would do one deep cleaning project. Not a really exciting tradition but it feels so good! At least for me. Each chore usually takes us less than an hour and when I have Justin there to help it actually gets done. We have done things like clean the walls, clean the bathrooms, spot clean the carpet, clean the windows and windowsills, clean under the fridge and stove (next week's job). And other types of jobs get incorporated too; like today Justin changed the oil in the car and let the boys help. It takes a lot of pressure off me because I can keep up on the basic things and then I know that once a week something will get checked off my list of other things that need done but that I can never get to.
And there you have it. All my ramblings about work and cleaning. Ten points if you actually read this whole post!