Responsibility Training Update

About a year ago I posted this to explain how I manage chores at my house.  It worked well for a while and I was happy with it for the most part but it was tricky to manage 3 kids on one chart.  I switched to having separate checklists for a while and my kids really like having their own individual checklist instead of sharing.  So I remade my chart for the kids.  Here is what my new one looks like:


I printed one for each of the younger kids ages 8, 6, and 4.  The 4 year old has one that says go potty instead of brush hair.  I explained to the older 2 that I wanted wiggle room.  If they only get the first 3 things done before school that is good enough.  If they have time to accomplish more then that is great but we have time after school as well.  The ones with plus signs next to them are on the following chart.  Since we all have different initials I can choose to mark what chores are done by mom, dad and older brother and they can see that we are also contributing to the family as well as see what chores are available for them to do.  Because of how this printed out I had room to tape a snack sized baggie to each of their charts and I set it up in a space where I had more room to spread out in the hallway.

 Here is a picture of my set up:

You may notice I changed a couple things.  On the kitchen chores I thought I wanted to check it off everyday for breakfast lunch and dinner but we actually have room to write multiple initials when we do a second or third load of laundry so I am switching to a weekly check off like I did for the others.
My favorite thing about using plastic sheet protectors is that I can observe and make adjustments to my system as I see fit.
The other change is the dollars.  I thought I wanted different dollars for each child until I saw that I could attach the snack bags to their paper directly.  But I like this printable money because it was smaller design and it was easy for me to save and use paint to copy the $1 and make a page of just ones.  As you can see they fit in the sandwich bags easily.

The only other barrier I have run into is the shared screens like the tv and computers.  It is hard to police them when one child has done the work to earn their screen time and the others can mooch off of it by sneaking behind and watching.  That is hard to manage.  We fortunately have alternate options like smaller hand held screens that they can use.  I just have to be willing to enforce that lack of screen time when it hasn't been earned consistently and they will eventually choose to do their work.  Also I am willing to exchange the family dollars for quarters which comes in handy when they get book order forms from school.  I found that I need versatility to manage multiple children at various stages of capability.  To be honest it can get tiresome to maintain this level of organization over a long period so don't be hard on yourself if you take a break from it.  The novelty wears off for everyone and when you start fresh the novelty is also renewed.

I tried for a month just doing my original dollar system one on one with my oldest daughter and she liked the extra attention and privileges.  The six year old was saying "I wish I could do the dollar system." in her mopey voice.  It got me thinking maybe I can do this with the 4 year old too.  They attacked their chores with renewed vigor when I brought this out and made it so I could focus on teaching the 4 year old to "earn some dollars."  I have days where I slip and let the TV turn on and they watch without paying.  There are consequences on me because I have to pay for not enforcing my own rules.

It is hard work being a parent.  Good luck!