My Latest Attempt

For Family Home Evening last week, I typed up word strips of all the things that Austin and Macy should be able to do at their age. In the book I'm reading, she provides a suggested chart for every age up to 18. So, I started there and added a few things from my own brain. It included chores, but also skills like saying prayers, riding a bike, washing own hair, etc. Then, I put strips of masking tape on the floor to make three boxes. In the first one, the kids were supposed to put the things that they knew how to do really well and didn't need any help. In the second one, they put the things that they kind of knew how to do but still needed a little help from mom and dad. In the third one, they put things that they had never learned.  I purposefully typed up absolutely everything that they knew how to do, and a few things that I had never taught them. 

It was very interesting to see their response.  Austin desperately tried to fit everything into the first box (at least in the first two boxes, but definitely NOT the last box).  He felt like he needed to know everything.  He had one strip that said "Wash dishes by hand," and he put it in the first box.  I asked him if he knew how to do this, and he said, "Yes."  I asked him who taught him since Greg or I had never showed him how to do it.  It took me a few minutes to convince him that it was okay to put things in the last box.  It wasn't bad; it simply meant that he hadn't learned that skill yet.  Macy, on the other hand, was perfectly content throwing anything she didn't like in that last box.  She had one strip that said, "Pick up toys" and another one that said, "Make bed."  With both of them, she looked at me and said, "I don't know how to do this," and she threw it in the last box.  I asked her, "Not even a little bit, even with help from Mom and Dad?"  She just shook her head, "No.  I don't know how to do that."  My fiercely independent child and my pampered little princess.  Oy vey!

When they were finished, we lined up all the word strips and wrote them down (we help them re-assign a few strips when we disagreed).  The kids were so impressed with themselves (and so were we, frankly).  They really do know how to do A LOT of things (maybe we haven't completely failed after all).  We tried to make it a huge deal that they were such big, responsible kids.  

This is the result of that FHE - My latest attempt at chore charts.  I don't like regular sticker charts because I don't need them to do the same things every day.  So, we went to the craft store and bought these magnetic boards.  I bought ABC letters and let them pick out three wood decorations each.  They painted them all by themselves (I did "clean" up Macy's a bit - With the amount of paint she used, it would have taken days for them to dry).  Then, we glued it all together.  (Who said I wasn't crafty!)  Then, I wrote down their chores on wooden stars and hearts and glued magnets on them.  You can't really tell, but I drew a line down the middle.  I will hang them in their rooms, and each day, I will select the few chores that need to be done and put them on the right side of the chart.  When they have finished their chore, they move the magnet to the left side.  It's an easy way to see if they finished everything.  Let's hope it works - for a few months at least.