When Should I Start Assigning Chores?

Debra,

Absolutely adorable video, he is on top of his responsibilities Grin Grin. Thanks you so much for sharing. Thank you for the compliments on our house. I agree that children can, and do understand intrinsic rewards and have found that these rewards are truly more affective. I believe this is because concrete rewards are often surface deep and even young children see this.

The link for the bank is excellent for me. With our current economic state the kids all lost their savings accounts. Currently dad and I are monitoring it from a box with receipts while we evaluate a steady bank to open an account. This option will allow us to better manage the funds and let the kids get more involved. I think it is great that someone thought to create a child bank that focuses on these ideas.

Mikki Hogan
Publisher of UniqueParenting.com

Elsie, Thanks for starting this topic.
Mikki, WOW - your household is amazing!
Melissa - Great idea about the laundry. My niece has been helping me with laundry since she was 3 and loves it!

When Eric and I discussed this topic years ago, our beliefs line up with yours. I just hate that today we link everything to money. I want my kids to help out because "If we clean, the house will look nice." As a teacher I was often criticized for focusing too much on intrinsic rewards. Parents and other teachers warned me that kids that young could only understand concrete rewards. Well, they were wrong. My classroom atmosphere was angelic. Kids truly cared about each other and the class property. And they could verbalize it too! They would tell you that they behaved because "I am a good person" and not to avoid a punishment or receive a reward. I think the system that Mikki has in place facilitates this idea. We can teach children about money through our own management of it and through "above and beyond" assignments.

If you want to pay kids for chores, its not totally bad. That is how the world works, right. Just make sure they understand the need to contribute so they become givers and not takers.

Other:
There is a piggy bank at toys r' us that has 4 divisions: save, spend, donate, invest. This is a great tool. Check it out at: http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2267487 (There is another method called save-spend-give by Dave Ramsey. It encourages kids to tithe and to give to others or buy for others not just for themselves. This method pays kids for chores.)

On a last humorous note...Funny that you mention the dishwasher... We just took this video of our 10 month old son doing his first chore. It's hilarious! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QytenAQ25mE

Mikki-Thank you! That's a gold mine. Those are great ideas. I can't wait until my husband gets home so I can run them by him and we can talk about how to implement things. And I love that your husband just buys the kids something and doesn't make them pay him back because that also teaches them about grace and how we were given something from Jesus that we could never pay back.

~Elsie

Elsie, I'm really excited to hear these questions. I agree that attaching allowance to chores leads to a tendency to do them "so we get money" and not because it is part of the responsibility in the family. Melissa - you know I support your decision and every family has different needs. I am excited to see Miracle finally taking part in the house and doing her part. This is better for her than it was last year!

In our home we don't do a weekly allowance either. First we couldn't afford to with 7 children holding out their hands Grin and second kids come to expect that money and see it as part of their "normal" routine. The primary source for our children is through recycling. We save up our bottles and cans that we can get a redemption from and once a month we take them in to be recycled. The kids love this time of the month because they get MONEY. They get between $5 and $10 a piece and then the division of personal funds begin. We participate in tithes at church, so our children are encouraged to take 10% of this money and put it in the change jar at services on Saturday, (Morgan has now started saving her money to give $1 on Holy days instead of the weekly change jar, we don't take up weekly offerings at our church, only the Holy days)

Then with the remaining amount they are REQUIRED to take 50% and add it to their savings. We opened an account for each kid and now even Morgan writes up her deposit slips at the bank and keeps track of how much money she has. When they see a special toy they want, I don't allow them to remove money from their savings accounts, telling them this money is to always be left in the bank unless there is an emergency situation that requires excess funds. As parents we know the lengthy list of those!! Shocked Instead they are encouraged to save up the other 50% until they have enough. They don't always do this and later feel sad that they don't have enough for the special toy. I have witnessed great lessons in this manner as the kids determined to set a goal and save $1 every time they have money to buy that special toy!

Also the kids get birthday money and we follow a similar format, with the exception of tithes, since this is "gift" money the tithe is not encouraged. They are still free to give it though. They are required to take 10% of that money and put it in savings (their birthday money is always in addition to a present). Throughout the month the kids will collect loose change around the house (with permission of course) and they divide it between themselves and consistently put 50% into their savings. We follow that with all the "free" money they come by.

And finally the last way the kids can actually earn money. In our home we have assigned chores that rotate every day. Each chore is a room, i.e. - kitchen, dining room, hall and foyer, bathroom, ect.. and each room has a list to be completed properly. The list will include sweeping and mopping, dusting, counters, mirrors and so on. Anything not on those lists is open game I call. If the kids want more money they can complete a job for an appropriate fee. Washing walls is worth $5 a wall, fridge is $20, cleaning the yard $5, washing windows, $5 and so forth. There is a distinct difference between doing a job to earn money or completing daily chores. With this earned money they are expected to follow the above percentages - 10% tithe, 50% savings.

When they were under 5 years we didn't "offer" the jobs in the same manner to avoid the expectation for getting paid to do chores. Instead we kept the jobs outside the home, for example if dad was working on the truck Aaron could help and earn a couple of dollars. Washing the car could earn money and so on. The one thing we did was made sure to refer to the chores as that, a chore AND their responsibility in the home, and jobs were just that, jobs. We would say, "hey Aaron I have a job for you. Would you like to help?" We never offer to pay them for the job, we want them to participate for reasons other than money, but when the job was done we would say, "Good work. I think that job was worth $2."

One final thing I do, (my husband does it differently and I think it's okay in this situation that we don't do the same thing) if we are at the store and one of the kids forgot their money at home, I won't give them money up front and let them pay me back. As mean as it sounds I see it as teaching them that borrowing money isn't the way to get what we want. I will bring them back to the store with their money and let them buy what they are after. My husband usually just buys what they are asking for, but he doesn't let them "pay him back." He tells them instead, "How about I just buy this for you today, but you don't have to pay me back." It is a different approach but still discourages "borrowing" money.

We have followed this format consistently with the four younger kids (we weren't in quite the same habits when the boys were young and realized we hadn't properly taught them money management) and it has really taught them a lot about money, and living within their means. All the kids are aware of how precious money is and the difficulty to come by it. They are learning the need to save, AND leave that saved money for emergencies. They are also learning that borrowing money is NOT the way to get what we want in life. Of course they are aware of borrowing money for a car or a house, well the older kids are. My two younger ones think we just own it Grin. What I am teaching them to avoid is borrowing money to buy that nice dress in the window, because they don't quite have enough!

As the kids get older they need to be more involved in the family budget per say. For example Danielle came out the other day and said, "Mom you need to start teaching me to pay the bills." I thought to myself, wow she's right! She is 16 next month and we haven't started teaching her what it is to pay the bills! Each pay period my husband and I sit down with the budget and stack of assigned bills for that pay period and pay bills, now Danielle will be a third party to that, learning how to look at total money available, what needs to be paid and when, and paying those bills! In this manner she will learn well before she leaves home how to pay bills and live within her means over and above just buying things she wants.

A couple tips on weekly allowances, if you guys are able to afford it and decide it is the best way to teach money management, especially while he is little then I would suggest making sure you keep it separate from his chores. Also avoid calling it his "weekly" allowance. My dad used to hand us a couple dollars (inconsistently) and say, "I saw you looking at that dress yesterday. This may not be enough to buy it but who knows, maybe you can save it until you have enough." By doing this we never expected more money, instead we thought of ways to get more! And lastly give it on different days. If he gets $1 every Friday then every Friday he expects a dollar. However if he gets a dollar on different days of the week he doesn't come to expect it by Friday, instead he is more likely to anticipate (which is a good thing) getting a dollar.

Hope this helps and I am glad to have the opportunity to share how we teach money management! Remember whatever you choose be sure and teach him to save, and to leave that savings for emergencies! That is one of the MOST important parts of money management.

Mikki Hogan
Publisher of UniqueParenting.com

Hello Elsie, My experience with chores has been quite interesting. My daughter is 11 and i just started making her do chores at the beginning of the school year. Now i am regretting waiting so long cause she seems to have a problem remembering to do them and when she does she tries to do them as fast as possible and she ends up not doing them right or having to redo them. one week i had to punish her by not giving her allowance for that week, needless to say the next week her chores were all done, she didn't want to loose out on that money again. I am trying to get her to learn more responsibility and chores is a good way to start. Don't make the same mistake i did though. Start them early. Like for example now you could have him help you with laundry. H e could help you put away his clothes, he could even help switch them from washer to the dryer, at his age he may enjoy tossing the clothes in the dryer. Make him a little chore calendar with some fun stickers and every time he does it put a sticker, it is like a little reward. When he gets a whole week full of stickers you could give him a special snack as a reward, that might give him incentive to get it done everyday. Well i hope this will work for you. If it does let me know how it is going for you.

Hello Elsie, My experience with chores has been quite interesting. My daughter is 11 and i just started making her do chores at the beginning of the school year. Now i am regretting waiting so long cause she seems to have a problem remembering to do them and when she does she tries to do them as fast as possible and she ends up not doing them right or having to redo them. one week i had to punish her by not giving her allowance for that week, needless to say the next week her chores were all done, she didn't want to loose out on that money again. I am trying to get her to learn more responsibility and chores is a good way to start. Don't make the same mistake i did though. Start them early. Like for example now you could have him help you with laundry. H e could help you put away his clothes, he could even help switch them from washer to the dryer, at his age he may enjoy tossing the clothes in the dryer. Make him a little chore calendar with some fun stickers and every time he does it put a sticker, it is like a little reward. When he gets a whole week full of stickers you could give him a special snack as a reward, that might give him incentive to get it done everyday. Well i hope this will work for you. If it does let me know how it is going for you.

Hello Elsie,

We started chores between 3 and 4.  At this age they are old enough to start helping with something every day however we didn't discipline them for not doing it well.  For example when Morgan was three she had to help put the kids books on the shelf at the end of each day.  She liked to throw them up there every which way and I would sit next to her and stand them up neatly and say, "If we stand them up they stay on the shelf better."  At this age the kids were also responsible for putting their dishes in the kitchen, (we didn't do the sink because the dishes were easily broken since the kids are just too short to place them in softly) around age four they were expected to scrape their dishes as well.  If the food goes flying I would take their hands and show them how to lower the dish and scrape off the food.  By the age of 5 my kids were thrown into the regular loop of household chores including the dishes.  Of course at this age they need a chair to reach the sink and an older person, (parent or sibling) rinses them off to make sure they are clean and just subtly oversee the task.

We (unfortunately) are among the families that don't make our beds every day, however my kids would be brought in to help make their beds as young as 2 years old.  They would help change the sheets when they were being washed and spread the blankets out neat.  I never offered a reward at the end, we just simply expected them to do the job because it was their responsibility.  That was the mindset and they understood it. 

I think you will find that Aiden will begin to just complete the tasks because mom tells him to each day.  Select something that he has to do every day, like put the books back on the shelf before bed, or dust the coffee table, or wash the mirror and every day go with him to do the task.  Don't ask him to help, don't even tell him he has to help.  Simply approach it by saying, "Aiden we need to clean the mirror how about you spray and I wipe?" and don't except no for an answer.  If he doesn't want to spray then let him wipe, or take his hand and gently help him wipe.   

This will begin the habit of doing something each day.  You can even make the dishwasher his daily chore.  He already enjoys the silverware and there are dishes every day so you can make it a point to bring him with you when it is time to unload them.  Also start having him pull his blankets up on his bed every morning when he gets out of it first thing.  You can start by saying, "Aiden grab that corner and help me pull the blankets up."  Then you can gradually switch to "Aiden, pull your blankets up before you get your clothes."

As for thinking you expect too much out of him you could consider the responsibilities of children before modernization.  At a very young age kids were expected to take part in the household responsibilities and it was down right good for their personal development.  Consider that 8 year old boys were out chopping trees and 5 year old girls were in the kitchen making bread dough!  Our kids are ready to handle sharing in the up keep of our homes.  We, as parents, simply need to teach them how.

Hope this helps and I would love to talk more about starting him on chores if you have any other questions.  Post them here and I would love to share more tips on getting him going.

Mikki Hogan Publisher of UniqueParenting.com