4Real Forums: Chores

Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.

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Mothering and Family Life
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Topic: Chores

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Syncletica
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Joined: June 11 2007
Location: Canada
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Posts: 450

Posted: Sept 09 2010 at 8:28pm \| IP Logged

Do you work with your children to help them complete their chores? Mine know what to do and what I expect, or, at least they should since I've told them often enough. Their chores are written down on sheets that are tacked on their bedroom walls. (Or with pictures for the pre-reader.) Chore packs didn't work that well. They were wonderful at first, b/c it was something new, but then they started playing with their packs and would lose cards, and sometimes the pack itself, b/c they decided they didn't like it pinned on. I like to 'kill two birds with one stone' and work on something in the kitchen, or whatever, while they do their chores. They'll tell me they're done, and many times I don't get to check right away. Today, for example, I was doing a bunch of work with produce that had been given us. They were sent to do their chores after helping with what they could in the kitchen. The steps still had toys all over, the laundry hadn't been touched, toys laying around, etc. Yet, if they'd actually refer to their charts and do what they said, there shouldn't be such messes after a tidy up! It's very frustrating.
What system do you do that works for your family? How do you go about training your children to do their chores, then leave it to them to complete without your assistance or constant watchful eye?

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JodieLyn
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Joined: Sept 06 2006
Location: Oregon
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Posted: Sept 09 2010 at 8:39pm \| IP Logged

time... age.. maturity..

Otherwise you do have to keep a watch.. even if it's just having to drop everything and check them before they can go do anything else.

But I've never found a system that really works here..

I've tried having kids have jobs or rotate jobs or.. and it just doesn't seem to work.. I'm not sure why.. partly because of the number of kids and the closeness of ages I think.. things like "the youngest capable of doing the job" means that the older kids don't have much to do.. but when we do have older kid jobs they do those.

We do better with the daily assigned jobs.. sometimes someone WANTS to do a particular chore and you know.. I'm good with that.. some days some kids work together better than other days and there's enough required working together or in close proximity that being able to let them seperate more on some days is fine.

And it's also given the size of the house very difficult to apportion the work evenly.. I mean.. you can't assign one person to laundry and they're working on it off and on all day long while one person cleans the bathroom and can be done in under an hour.. and there's only so many inside areas.. kitchen, living room, bathroom, hallways and bedrooms.

Picking up outside sometimes isn't needed or needs everyone out there working.. sometimes the older ones may be put in charge of it.. other times the younger ones do the picking up so that after they're done the older ones can mow and weedeat and such.

Sometimes our schedule dictates that everyone works on cleaning one room so that it's done ASAP.

I don't do most things on a schedule so I guess that makes it hard to set a schedule for others like chores.

When I'm not up to snuff.. I have to give mroe chores out than I do otherwise as well.. like now.. I am doing less than I normally can even to this point of pregnancy (38 weeks) but moving and bending especially is just really uncomfortable so I've done things like taken one of the younger kids to pick up laundry from the garage floor and then we put the basket up where I can reach without bending much so that I can do the sorting. Which works well.. but that means other things need to shift around.

Maybe it's just that on any given day I can see which areas need a higher level of competance to get them accomplished in a timely manner, and which kids are "on" so that they are working better.. and who's working with who nicely.. I don't know.. it just seems that it's too complex when I try and make a chart or something. And when I do it "by the seat of my pants" things get done better with a better attitude overall.

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