I went on a short trip to Florida over Christmas break with my family. While I was there my sister offered to help me make a chore box. “What is a chore box?” you ask. Well, let me show you.
It’s just an unassuming black box, right? You’d never know that inside lies the key to my sanity (and a clean house).
One of the beauties of this particular system is that it is highly customizable. You can figure out what jobs and goals you want your family to accomplish. You keep track of everything on index cards, so if something isn’t working for you or you think of something you want to add it’s very easy to add or remove cards.
On the “Daily” tabbed divider card I have what is expected of each family member clearly outlined.
On the yellow cards I have listed the jobs that I want my children to accomplish each day. You’ll notice that they are really simple. I like this for now because we are starting a new system and I don’t want to be overwhelmed by introducing a lot of foreign habits. For example, our “After School Jobs” are:
- give papers from school to mom
- hang up backpacks and coats
- get a snack
- do chores (“easy” and “hard” jobs see below)
- homework
In addition to daily jobs each day the children must choose one “easy” job (white card) and one “hard” job (pink cards) from the “This Week” tabbed section. There are stickers to help the little ones who aren’t reading yet know what they are supposed to do. When the job is finished they can put it into the “Next Week” tabbed section. At the beginning of the new week I move all the jobs that I want done again that week to the “This Week” section. Clear as mud?
I also have color coded cards for each child that go under the “Individual Jobs” section. These are basically goals that I’ve talked about with my kids and things that I want them to work on or learn or things that they’d like to accomplish. For example one of Nate’s jobs this year is going to be to make and answer phone calls. I’ve created a tabbed section just for me as well.
The Parenting Breakthrough by Merilee Boyak has several lists that helped me in determining what goals and chores are appropriate for the ages that my children are currently. I also took several ideas for chores from my sister’s chore box. If you need help coming up with ideas leave me a comment and I’d be happy to offer suggestions.
So that’s it. Pretty easy, right? It’s working pretty good for us so far. I think for me, they key is to not get discouraged when it doesn’t work perfectly and just keep at it. The boys love having some say in what they have to do by getting to pick their jobs. There’s also something satisfying about finishing a task and getting to put that card back in the box behind the “Next Week” tab. Good luck and have fun!
4 comments:
This is such a great idea! I am thinking I may make one. Good luck with the chores!
What a great idea. I might just have to try this out because I have been looking for a good way to get organized with the chores!
Okay, so I read through this more thoroughly today, and am just wondering -- what kind of tasks do you have listed for yourself? Do you have all of your homekeeping responsibilities listed, or just certain ones?
I have a lot written down for myself--a have listed a few of the homekeeping responsibilities that I am prone to let slide a bit: paper work, bills, mopping the kitchen floor, etc. I also have listed some goals that I want to work on (everything from making sure to eat breakfast daily to daily scripture study. That section of the box is just tailored to me and what I think I need to work on--kind of like a Franklin planner in a box almost. I love lists (as you probably know by now) and moving a particular "done" card to the back of the stack is a good physical and visual way for me to check something off my list. Make sense?
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