I'll tell you what. Pioneer dresses are awesome! E loves this dress. In fact, she was recently invited to a Princess Party and insisted on wearing her "pioneer" dress. I made sure she knew that all of the girls at the party were going to be princesses and, when I knew she understood, I was thrilled that she didn't care about being different - but that is not the point (however, the father of the Princess for whom the party was thrown referred to E as the "Princess of the Prairie" - I liked that). The point is, this dress can hold 13 shoes. That is just smart planning! E can do her jobs in a fraction of the time with her pioneer dress on. Do you think my boys could be talked into wearing one? They always seem to take an exceedingly long time to do their jobs...
So - how do you motivate your children to do jobs, or how were you motivated when you were younger? I am always looking for new ideas because I have found that once my "genius idea" has been done three or four times, it loses it's "fun". Here is a list of a few of my brilliant gems of thought:
-The BEST thing I have found in cleaning is to give my children the same jobs every single day. This works well for them because they know T has to clean the living room and library (including vacuuming) and the kids bathroom before he can play. M has to clean the dining room (including sweeping) and the upstairs family room. C has to do the dishwasher and stairs and landing - you get the point. Since they don't have to come say (all grouchy-ish) "what do I have to do now?" it saves us time and annoyance.
-Rewards for jobs done in a certain time frame.
-On BIG clean up days sometimes we do "Fun Job/Not Fun Job" which is a game I made up several years ago. You use two bowls and write jobs on strips of paper. In one you put the "Fun" jobs - like spray and wash the mirrors (my kids love that), or load the washer and put in the soap. Rinsing dishes is also fun but ends up making it so a mom has to mop the floor. In this bowl I also put things like "Free Time" or "Have a cookie" or "Turn on your favorite song". Then the other bowl gets the stuff like "Pick up 20 things", "Dust the bookshelf", "Sort the laundry into lights, whites, and darks". Then the kids get to pick from the bowls, alternating which bowl each time.
-B recently thought up this WONDERFUL idea. It is called "Happy Helper". Every Monday night we pick a "Happy Helper" and this person helps with the "Run get me a diaper" or "Will you please take this up stairs?" We call the person "Happy Helper" each time we ask them to do something to remind them of the HAPPY part. It usually works. During the week the Happy Helper gets little privileges like picking the prayer or getting to choose which brownie they want first or getting the fun spoon at breakfast - nothing huge, just little fun things to remind them that they are special. We have been doing this for just over a month and the kids still TOTALLY look forward to picking the helper (the current reigning Happy Helper is the one who picks the newly crowned Happy Helper each week - another privilege they all love).
I would love to hear your ideas!
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10 comments:
Heather you sound like the best mom. I thought that my kids should be doing more, and you just proved it. I will have to make Mitch read this post, along with some friends who think "I am the meanest mom on the block".
For cleaning up, there's always the good old speed cleaning, where you set a timer and see how much everyone can get cleaned in that time, then have a treat after. The kids could still do their assigned jobs, but only get thye reward if they do it well. You can set the timer for 15-30 minutes. Then it becomes a challenge to get it done, especially for the slow ones.
Hunter just came up with a chart plan...I have yet to actually MAKE the chart, but essentially I have broken down chores into a weekly job but they alternate, so maybe we clean the bathroom thoroughly every T,TH, Sa and vacuum upstairs every M,W,F and then there are the daily jobs like loading the dishwasher, unloading, etc. Each boy gets one every other day job and two or three dailies. The reward is that if each boy is doing his jobs properly we will do a fun night, like a movie out or a speacial dinner...that type of thing.
But usually it comes down to "if you don't do it now I will freak out on you."
We are also working on how to get everyone motivated to help mom with the house. We recently made up chore charts that include everything that they have to do each day. Next to each item that gets completed they get a sticker. At the end of the week we will count the stickers and they get a penny for each one (I love that they have no idea about worth of money yet.)
I don't know what it's like in your house, but with as many children as were crowding my parents' abode, fights over television watching broke out. My mother used chores as an opportunity for us to "earn" TV time: thus, a half hour of cleaning the bedroom marked a half hour program of TV. (Reading could also earn you TV time, which was how she encouraged nonreaders to switch their allegiance to books.) Voluntary chores counted extra and some chores were designated as a specific amount of earned time, regardless of how long it took to complete them. (Naturally, these were the more odious chores such as garden weeding or refrigerator cleaning.) It worked really well for a while...until we were caught too many times "happening" to be in the room watching TV during what was someone else's TV time. Small houses and large families...fun stuff!
Why you always gotta be so creative...with everything? I just yell. That's my brilliant idea.
I love the pioneer dress and what a sweet little face poking out of it!
You inspire me. Thank you for sharing your ideas! I'm going to use them. I need to start expecting more out of my boys. A few weeks back I asked Judson to do something simple for me and he actually had the gall to say, "you do the all the cleaning and cooking and I do the playing." Duh, why didn't I know that?
I love the Happy Helper idea, I'll have to try that one. :) My kids also have certain jobs that are their jobs to do every day/week and that does seem to help a lot. I can't think of any great ideas right now!
Heather:
Thanks for all of the good ideas. My kids like job lists with check boxes. That way the fast ones can just get done, and the slow ones can take their time (until the deadline approaches)!
Have a great day!
I am glad your getting such usage out of the dress! I loved them too and wish my girls would have worn them.
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