I was burned out! I was doing all the things while my sweet husband was traveling 5-6 days per week, not getting home until 10pm most nights if he wasn’t having an overnight stay. He wanted to help, but his job back then took him away from our city more often than not. And I was tired, experienced postpartum depression, and I just felt like I was drowning under homeschooling, nursing babies, and well... Life. And I remember meeting with one of my mentors, and she said, “What chores are your children responsible for.” And that conversation changed my life. Now years later, I finally feel as if we have a good system that works for us. It only took us years of practice, but finally, I don’t feel bogged down with household duties. We can actually enjoy life! Adopting a more minimalism lifestyle has helped really declutter the unnecessary excess in our lives, making it so much easier to clean and lean into less!
So how do you start a chore system and commissions with kids?
Take a day off from cleaning. No really, I want you to take a day off from cleaning, and then walk around to see what daily chores need to get done. Take out your notepad or phone, and make a running list of every single thing that drives you bonkers that’s not done on your day off. For me: making my bed, my kids making their beds, tables wiped down, floor swept, living room picked up, kitchen cleaned. Those are some things that are important to me daily. Oh and bathrooms. With two boys who don’t always aim well, bathrooms are a daily need in our house! So bathrooms are a daily cleaning that has to be done in our home. What are the items on your list that need to get done daily?
Assign chores based on age appropriateness! Look at your list and assign a chore to children and yourself and spouse. Divide the chores based on ages, but make sure everyone has a job daily. Consider the ages of your children and assign chores based on ages. We start chores early. So a 2 year old can help grab laundry or help pick up toys. Our kids are 5, 7,8, and 12 now, so their chores look something like this (they have more but this is a general list:
Daily chores for our 12 year old: Kitchen (load/unload), counters, sweep, kitty litter, folding 1 basket of laundry
Daily chores for our 8 year old: Bathroom 1, Trash take out, scoop out back (dog), sweep floor after each meal, put away laundry, pick up room
Daily chores for our 7 year old: Bathroom 2, Trash take out, scoop out back, wipe table after each meal, pick up room, put away laundry
Daily chores for our 5 year old: Pick up laundry room, sweep laundry room, put away clothes, pick up room
The Kids earned a bit extra this week by participating in a Vegan Challenge! Check out our stories to see HERE
3. Now create a Master List of all the Daily Chores with Assignments: Go over daily expectations and chores with children and demonstrate what CLEAN means to you by showing each of the chores you want done by each child. This may mean daily demonstrating for a period of time until you believe the child understands the expectation. Because we own restaurants and my husband is a 1 on the Enneagram, this step has become very important. By demonstrating what CLEAN means and the expectation, we are teaching our children the importance of hard work and doing things the “right way” as my husband says. :) Post the Master List somewhere where you can see it daily.
4. Use a Chore Tracking System to follow up daily and track which chores are being done daily. Here’s the one we use! A printable I created!
5. Decide what is in the budget to pay commissions (or allowance) to children. Look at your budget and determine what a good amount would be each week to pay children. We pay weekly because children need to see that when they work hard, they can earn money! They need to see the connection. So we pay weekly. Because we have a ton of kids, we pay $5 for the boys who are 7 and 8, $4 for the 5 year old, and $15-$20 because she does extra chores each week so we pay her more than the others. So $34 a week is in our weekly budget (and some may argue that could go to debt), but for us, teaching our children the value of hard work, giving, saving, and spending is an invaluable lesson that is super important to us. And as Tabitha Brown says, “And that’s our business!” Haha. She’s my fave.
6. Pay using one dollar bills or even coins to teach how to give, save, spend! In our home, we tithe because it is super important to us. So we teach our children to give tithes before they do anything else with their money. Then we teach them to save a portion! And then based on their own goals, then they can spend whatever is leftover after giving and saving! We do not determine how much they save, but we do strongly encourage saving a good portion. We incentivize it by saying we will match whatever they save at the end of the year to encourage good saving habits.
Oh before I forget friend, adjust chores as needed. There are certain chores that some of my kids do well, and others they need more time to grow into. For example, the boys do great with the bathrooms but not so great at the kitchen yet. So adjust chores as necessary until you find a good system that works for your family! Chores and household duties do not have to be overwhelming and daunting! They can be fun, productive, and so liberating! Now we can actually spend a portion of our day doing chores, and the rest enjoying our time together as a family! And so can you!
Until next time friend,
Shelly
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