No more chores

Yesterday was a very frustrating day for me. I was yelling and nagging a lot at the kids because they weren't taking responsibilty for putting there own things away. I had asked Hannah three times in the morning to put her bedding back on her bed from the sleepover the night befor and it never happened. I told Jason and Hailey to pick up there room and they fought and fought so I had to get in there with them. Jason had his bedding and pillows all over the room again and Hailey had taken out a ton of toys and things form under her bed and then just left them on the floor mixed in with laundry. I'd had enough. Jason and Hannahs bedding was removed as well as all the clothes Hannah had wadded in her dresser drawers that were all open and about to fall out (did I mention she had just had me take her to the mall), and the big pile of mess Hailey had made were all taken away. I figured if they weren't going to take better care of it than that, then they really could stand to miss it for awhile.

Days like yesterday happen more and more often around here. All the big kids have chores that take somewhere between 5 and 15 minutes a day to do. No a a lot really but it keeps them participating in the daily upkeep of the house which I feel is a family responsibilty and is important to me. Sadly in order to get the kids to do the chores or really anything I do a lot of reminding, nagging and yelling. Over the years I've tried different things from money to charts to get the kid to do the chores and take care of thier things without me nagging, yelling and reminding them all the time. Nothing has worked. My goal is to get them to see a mess and pick it up, put thier own things away and in general learn to take care of the house as a family, but it hasn't been working out to well. After yesterday I decided to look at it differently and make everything optional fo them with some good and bad consequenses attached, because everything in life has consequences. I decided to make most of the millions of things they think are must have, but are really extras, become optional as well. I worked up a chart of a couple dozen household things that get done every day around here and a chart of extra things like computer, movies, play station, chaufering, sleepovers, earning stuff back and such. Everything has points assigned to it to either earn or use. I also listed a few basic things that might cause someone to lose points like not picking up after themselves or not doing something that was asked of them. It's now completely up to each child if they wish to do anything at all in the way of household stuff.If they don't work for the points thoguh they won't have points to get things back, do the extra fun things or have me do extra things for them. Each of them has a chart for the week and we are going to try this for a month to see if it improves things around here some.

This morning I called all the kids together and told them they had no more chores. Jason and Hailey shouted for joy, Hannah looked skeptical and sort of like she thought I'd lost my mind. Then I expained my plan and why. They asked a bunch of questions and overall seemed to be ok with the plan. I figured they might pick a couple things on the list to do and then stop until they actually wanted to do something they needed points for. They have suprised me by doing almost everything on the list already this morning. Hailey wanted to do more but ran out of things she could do. Jason is loving the points becuase he wants the most lol. Hannah hasn't complained and has just been doing stuff, of course she has the most need for points since she is the one that has the most wants. Since Hailey and Jason can't really read the lists on thier own it has been annoying to have to constantly read what needs to be done for them but I'll take that over yelling and nagging any day.

I hope this works. Jason is once agian adding his points up and deciding what to do with them lol.