In yesterday’s challenge, we talked about the importance of delegating to your team. And if you’re a mom, then your team includes the kids! Here’s why you need to set up chore systems in your home and action steps for getting it done.
This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. I will receive a commission if you purchase from these links. Thank you.
This post is Day #8 of our 25-Day Productivity Challenge! You can find the entire round-up HERE. Make sure you pin this post so you can find it later and don’t forget to take action!
Why Your Kids Need Chores
Kids thrive with routines and structure and a chore system is just a basic part of growing up in a family. Everyone pitches in – all the housekeeping duties do not fall on mom’s shoulders!
Call it life skills, call it responsibility, whatever it is, it’s good for the kids. And it’s good for us because with delegating, we’re taking some of the pressure off ourselves.
Remember, there is no superwoman, so don’t try to be her!
A chore system will help your team and help you.
Our Chore System
Now, you can certainly set up your chore system however it fits your family. But here’s what has worked for us.
All the five kids chip in with daily chores, ranging from emptying and loading the dishwasher, to vacuuming, to cleaning the bathroom, to doing their laundry and putting it away.
We do pay our kids who are under fourteen years old. The teens that are over fourteen still do chores as a member of the family, but by now we hope they’ve found some kind of outside-the-home employment.
The younger kids are paid monthly based on their age. They get $1 per year of life per month, regardless of how many chores they do (which, in our home, each child has one daily chore).
So, a twelve year old would get $12 after a month of completed daily chores. He divides it up between savings (50%), sharing (10%) and spending (40%). The older the kids get, we do encourage them to save more like 60-70% and spend smaller amounts.
Our six year old would get $6 split up between savings ($3), sharing ($0.60) and spending ($2.40). I know this seems like very little, but it works for us. You might need to adjust up or down depending on your budget, how many kids you have, and motivation. We’ve been using this system for a long time, so the oldest kids were happy with the payout each month and don’t seem to mind.
Common Objections to Chore Systems
I know some people object to paying the kids at all for chores since they’re part of the household, and mom doesn’t get paid for housekeeping responsibilities. I can understand this argument!
But we’ve decided that in order to also teach our kids how to manage money well while they’re still in our home, they needed a little bit of money to manage. We didn’t want to just hand them money each month, but rather have them earn it.
It also has taken away the whining which can happen when you go to stores and the kids see something they want. Now they have to make financial decisions on a mini level – is that dollar store item worth as much to them if they have to use their own hard-earned money to buy it?
Are you convinced that you need chore systems? Here’s how to get it done.
Action Steps
If you’re ready to implement a chore system in your home to move yourself toward more productivity (because it’s not all on your shoulders alone), then here are the steps.
- Decide which chores to delegate to the kids
- Write them out on sticky notes (one chore per note for as many times as it needs done weekly)
- Have the kids arrange them according to which days of the week they will do it. So, if you need dishwasher empty and filled five days per week, don’t let two kids be on the same day – unless you run it more than once daily!
- Now transfer those chores onto a master calendar or their Trello boards
- Set a monthly pay day and make sure you have the right change on hand
If you’re a visual person, you might want to download my Chore System Set-Up which comes with a cheatsheet plus visuals! It’s also in my members-only FREE resource library.
Join us tomorrow where we’ll talk about how to work with your personality and not against it as you grow your productivity!
Check out the complete 25 Day Productivity Challenge!
[thrive_leads id=’7367′]
