Clean Up, Clean Up, Everybody Do Their Share

So after my last post I had an epiphany. My thinking went something like this: my house is messy-->my kids are key donors to this state-->my kids are as able bodied as I (if not more)--> therefore...

wait for it…

I. Will. Pay. My. Kids. To. Clean.

I know brilliant, right?! After all when I was a kid my parents made us do chores too but for FREE! In our home, rewards (ahem, bribery) and star charts (read competition) have worked for other things such self-dressing in the morning, or doing homework right after school; why not this crazy idea of cleaning up after ourselves??? Clearly what I have been doing to this point was not effective. I ask, beg, demand, scream, and mostly resolve to do it myself or simply hide when company comes. When I do ask the girls to perform certain tasks around the house that resemble cleaning up after themselves I am whined at, subjected to selective hearing and have even been ignored. From my children I have learned that on play dates which occur in our home, my dear, sweet offspring sit quietly with hands folded in lap as their friends storm through bedrooms and playrooms tossing toys and books around willy nilly. I have learned that ‘just-a-sec’ in kid time translates to ‘never’. And yes, I have even been told that cleaning up after them was in fact MY Job, gasp!

What kind of snot nosed brats am I raising you ask? Well, I think the run of the mill type actually. Given the choice would your kids clean? When told to clean or do a chore do your kids comply with a smile and ‘Yes Mother Dearest”? I doubt it, and if they do I so want your life!!!!!

So on to my lesson inducing method of getting help around here…I came up with some basic chores that I expected them to do every day. Simple things like bleaching the tub, polishing the woodwork and ironing my underwear. Don’t I wish! Speaking of ironing, I truly hate it! I live a wrinkly life, why shouldn’t my clothes reflect this? Actually my sister introduced me to this stuff and I swear it has changed my life, or at least changed how my t-shirts look as I live my life! But I digress, the chores my husband and I really decided the girls should do resemble things such as: Feed Dog, Walk Dog, and Empty Clean Dishwasher, Pick up Playroom, Make Your Bed, Put Your Dirty Clothes in Hamper, Take Trash Outside, etc.

The next big question is how to track all of these good works? Did you know that if you Google 'Chore Charts’ you will get a quarter of a million hits?? Wow, some people really are on board with this whole get your kids to clean up after themselves novelty. I found tons of sites offering printables or suggesting how to implement chore charting at home. One free printable that seemed cool was on DLTK’s website. It allows you to customize your own chart using various graphics, characters, colors, fonts and personalized chores. This is great, but not what I wanted. Material Girl that I am I wanted something cool and colorful and pretty. I also needed to appease the orderly Type-A me as well as the Lazy Don’t-Have-To-Remake-Every-Week me. Hey I never said I wasn’t complicated! To do this I simply zipped on over to Amazon and found exactly what I was looking for…thanks Board Dudes! And did I also mention how the Instant-Gratification me was thrilled with next day delivery?

The girls were actually pretty excited about the chore chart, and although they might have been happy with hugs and praises (oh they get lots of that too) they are really stoked about the money. It is not a lot of cash either, Hubby’s idea of one quarter for every two stars seemed pretty frugal to me. But wouldn’t you know we are just 4 days into this thing and my kids have

racked up nearly 5 bucks each, as a matter of fact I think I need to pay more attention to the doling out of stars, just take a look at what this thing looks like right now:

Errr, has anyone ever seen a star chart for working on the virtue of honesty and the peril of greed? You know I'm gonna have to check Amazon for that one.