I am a very lucky and blessed woman!
I have three of the most generous hearted - now grown up - children you could wish for.
However, at one point I had THREE TEENAGERS!
‘HOW DID YOU COPE?’ I hear you ask!
(it was easy compared to having twin babies and a four year old!! That’s for another time!)
I tried a few different methods to distribute the chores. Including - shouting, guilt tripping and whining - none of which were too successful beyond the first attempt!
The secrets to success were:-
Set an good example - you must be consistant with your own 'chores'
Don't have unrealistic expectations - by their nature children of this age will not always do a brilliant job, but doing any part of the job however badly may have been an effort which is worth praising
Rotate the jobs - make sure everybody gets to do the icky jobs!!
The system which worked best was to have ‘CHORE CARDS’
I broke the house down into each room and wrote a detailed list of what needed to be done in each room. As the cards are small the list was necessarily as short as possible. This meant that it wasn’t overwhelming for the children to tackle and therefore they didn’t really have much excuse not to do what they were asked to do!
Some areas of the house were more involved than others - the kitchen and bathroom went into the most detail as they are spaces used a lot by everybody and they were the spaces in my home, which tend to get the most messy and disorganised. This means that some cards were given out singley and some were doubled up. Also if one child had an after school club they were given a shorter card.
We never successfully instigated any payment for chores - primarily because a) I don’t really believe in it and b) we never had any spare cash!
I would say this system was 80% successful. This is a win in my book!!
Here are my Chore Cards: (you can download them for free in the shop on the website! Free Printables when you checkout!)
I cut them out and laminated them because they got quite crumpled and sticky!!
I have done a slicker version (!) which you can also download in the shop on the website for free. There are also some empty boxes you can fill with your own specific rooms and chores. Here is the first page:
I would love to here if you have managed to create a system of chores which works with pre-teens and teens?
Let me know in the comments below the blog.
You can comment below ↓↓ or look at the end of the blog for all the ways you can contact me privately. I love hearing from you with all your ideas and photos of the areas you are working on!!
If you want to delve deeper into finding a ‘system’ which will work for you, you can contact me via my email lindajharper@yahoo.com or using the chat bubble on my website, I would love to help you!
You can message me on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Linda-J-Harper-Professional-Declutterer-and-Organiser-107805011001601.
I am also on Pinterest and Instagram if you need some inspiration! https://www.pinterest.co.uk/adnilenaj1314/boards/
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