By Kristen Chase.
With summer officially here, we’ve handed in our final attendance report and are focused on a different type of learning in my house: responsibility. Yes, I’ve already written about the importance of chores for kids, but now I’m armed with a few effective ways to actually get my children to do them.
Well, aside from reminding them 400 times.
I’ve managed to make some changes around my house to afford us all less work, with board games moved to the closet so my near 2-year old doesn’t dump them out on a daily basis. I’ve done the same with her clothes, which I had previously stored in a dresser on our main floor, only to find myself folding and putting them away almost three times a day.
Yes I know. I’m slow at certain things.
I also purchased a Swoop Bag for my kids’ LEGOs, which has drastically reduced clean up.
But I also have these ways to help teach my kids responsibility. Here’s hoping at least one of them works. And considering one of them my own mom used, I’m betting it will.
1. Mom’s Shop
I honestly don’t even know what to call this because it was my mom’s idea, and as a kid, I kind of loathed it. Or at least, I rolled my eyes at it, but boy was it effective. The concept was pretty simple: If you did not pick up your things at the end of the day (like by bedtime, or a specific time decided by you), the items would end up in a big box in my mom’s closet. And in order for us to get them back the next day, we’d have to pay her. Yes, pay her.
She also did this for leaving the lights on, by the way.
For a quarter (sometimes more), we’d be able to grab one thing out of the box. Now she didn’t really care where the money came from. My mom started doing this when we were older, so I had a job, but my brother got an allowance.
Not only did we learn to pick up our stuff, we learned how much we could live without. I remember looking in that box after weeks had gone by and found a bunch of toys and shoes that I didn’t even miss.
The cool part: My mom gave me back all the money I paid her when I left for college.
2. The Saturday Box
This is a pretty similar concept to my Mom’s Shop, however, in this case, you would pick up everything that was left out at the end of the day all week long, or as my mom’s friend Annette (also a former homeschool mom) said “Flagrant violations,” all of which would be kept in a box in her closet that would only come out on Saturday. And in order to get them out, you had to have completed a series of tasks throughout the week.
The challenge is if your kid has a paper due at his co-op that’s stuck in there, you have to be able to say “sorry, have to wait until Saturday” because that’s really where the lesson is learned. However, this seems like a great way to teach responsibility and get chores done, all at the same time!
3. Mommy’s Ransom Box
So my friend Christina (yet another homeschool mom) shared this post, which I also saw circulating a bit on Facebook, that has two cool ideas. Take a peek at the chore punch card idea which I think is really smart. However, for this post, I’m focusing in on Mommy’s Ransom Box which is a system similar to the two above except if kids want to get their items that you’ve picked up at the end of the day (or when you’ve told them to and they don’t), they can do a chore to get one item back.
I think this is a great idea for younger kids who might not have money in their piggy bank, but can still learn that if they leave stuff out and about, they’re going to have to earn it back.
What do you think of these ideas? Would you use them?
Kristen Chase is a mom of 4, writer, and co-publisher of Cool Mom Picks and Cool Mom Tech, a popular shopping and trendspotting blog for moms, as well as 4 Kids or More, an online resource for the modern larger family. She’s a 2nd generation homeschooler, having been taught middle and high school by her own mother back when people were still using quills and ink wells, and is now a very well-adjusted and socialized homeschool mom herself.