Reward / Chore Chart

I've tried reward charts, tickets, fake money, marbles in a jar, you name it. It always seem to work wonderful for a month or so. Then it starts to get tedious and it doesn't work so well after the novelty wears off. Suddenly the reward that worked so well doesn't seem so appealing, or it's time for a reward and it doesn't work with our schedule. We'd also forget to mark chores off when we were in a hurry. We had trouble keeping track of marbles in the jar (one time the cat knocked the jar off the counter and broke it and the hard-earned marbles went everywhere!) and the fake money seemed to get lost.

The easiest system for us was a Control Journal for my daughter. We have a page for each day and her routines for that day are listed. Her chores are also listed as well. Each page is in a plastic sleeve and put in a binder. She uses a wet-erase marker to cross off her duties as she does them. This is her responsibility, not ours. (she is 9)

At the end of the week on Allowance day we review her journal. She is awarded $1.00 per day for completing all her tasks. If all of her tasks are not complete for that day, she earns nothing.

Now, you may not want to do that part, you may want to pay for partial tasks. However, we did that system for a while and she'd do maybe 50% of her chores and then she'd say "well, I did SOME of them" and act as if the rest didn't matter. She knew she'd get some money for that day so she didn't care. She's older now, so she knows that cleaning 1/2 of the bathroom is not okay. In the real working world, if you do 50% of your job you get fired.

This has worked for us and is easier for everyone than charts and tickets.

I also want to mention the House Fairy. This worked for helping her keep her room clean! Check out the website www.housefairy.org. You don't have to join to have the house fairy visit. She comes unexpectedly, so you never know! She comes to see if little children's bedrooms are clean. If they are, she leaves a surprise. If it is not, she leaves fairy dust. This worked wonderful for a long time as you do not have to have a chart. Every night they need to make sure their bedroom is clean just in case she shows up! (Our house fairy came once a week but you never knew which day and she shopped the dollar aisles at Target for surprises).

My daughter no longer believes in the House Fairy :( but it worked for many years. If your children are young, they will love the house fairy!

they r all over the internet. we do reward charts and also we have a home work station (positive) we got a cordbord with a tri fold and the kids got to decorate and i bought some velcro and we velcoed all kind of stuff liek pencil holders and folders to the cardbord and that way it is ther own and it is positive. and when the sticker chart is full for a week then we go to a movie or to chuckie chese or some where.
good luck
T.

how old are your kids? I have a 4 1/2 year old and we started with just "influencing" the behavior we wanted to see with check marks and he earned things like stickers or whatever if he got checks on his chart. That was last year...I had the same trouble that some of the PP's had though with remembering to check things off, him getting bored with it, etc. So I switch it up. When i think he's getting bored I update it (i have the file on my PC so i can change it whenever i want). Now we are having trouble with him being nice to his little brother so i have some tasks on there about being nice to him, playing a game with him, etc. it's all about what behavior you want to enforce and design your chart to help them acheive that. Now we have moved onto giving him dimes for each task he checks off (we do it on a daily basis so he can get rewarded on days he has good days and knows when he had bad days right away. Yesterday he just bought his first toy with his own earned money and let me tell you how excited he was!!! There's no rules but there are resources all over the internet. I just use paper on the fridge but i know there are places that sell pre-designed whiteboards, charts, etc. don't waste money on that stuff...just look at them for ideas, start out with 6-8 items, go over it with your kids and get started! consistency is key, though. pretty soon they'll be reminding you that they have to do their list for the day :) good luck! Feel free to mommymail me if you want me to send you what i use. It's very simple but i'd be happy to share.

Hi, Mommy:

Here is a different point of view from what you are asking. Just a thought.

The sad part about a rewards project is: A child does not learn that a part of life is doing things one doesn't want to do because it is the right thing to do. In all support group meetings the members are encouraged to do things for others and learning to give one realizes that one also receives. i Are you rewarded for doing the right thing? Praise for doing a good job or doing a job, is worth more than any sticker or checkmark.

Children learn that they have certain responsibilities in life as part of being a family. Parents also learn to ask his/her child to do what is necessary to do. If the child refuses to do it, this is where a problem shows up.

An approach to this is: Ask him/her questions like:

1. What happened?
2. What are you thinking of by this request?
3. Who has been affected by what you are doing?
4. In what way?
5. What do you think you need to do to make things right?

I am hoping this will give you a different perspective about children's responsibilities in the home.
Good luck.
D.

We don't use a reward chart but I do have a chore chart.
We have three "days".
Cat , dog, and kitchen.
So on Cat day the person feeds the cats and scoops litter, they picked a marker color and I put a C in their color on the calendar. Dog days have specific chores and gets a D, and kitchen gets a K. I just write the letter of the day in that color and the kids know what their chores are. 3 kids 3 different colors., C D K every day

I started this as my own version of Flylady years ago. My children's rewards are a clean house, a happy mommy and fun on the weekends.

I have a control journal where everything is written down, How to clean the kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, dining, play areas, etc and etc. How to do laundry. How to set the table.

I do charge a quarter for lights or flatirons left on.

I like the idea of tickets, dole them out at bedtime so they get a reward every day, but not every hour they are doing chores. So many per chore maybe, or more if they do a bang up job. For chores not completed, done wrong, not done at all, for behaviors you want to correct they give back a ticket.
Get a notebook, write everything down the way you want it done. Who does what on which days, use the calendar, mine is my best friend.