Not a Bad Week . . .

Ok, so here I am, Saturday night, squeezing in my last post for the week. Remember a previous post, I said I would do 3 a week? So here goes -

So, another "issue" I would like to tackle in our house is chores! Cleaning a house, not fun. I have a zillion other things I would rather be doing! However, I forget that I have children that could serve as Mini Molly Maids on any given weekend day (weekdays, between homework, after school activities and just the basic household chores, keep the girls, and me, busy)! These girls need to be trained and they need it right now!!

We seemed to have raised smart, caring, wonderful girls who do not believe chores are for them. TIME TO BREAK THEM!! They have been spoiled a bit on that part. So how do we fix this, what can we do so it is not a full-fledged, all-out-war each time we do chores? Going back to my all time favorite site Pinterest, here are some ideas we are going to implement.

I love this idea. My kids, and hubby, when they do chores, never do a thorough job, bless their cleaning-challenged hearts, so I think this is a great idea. I will (in the immediate future) create these for every room in the house. Whoever draws that room, (we are going to have everyone pick a card, pick any card) will know exactly what the jobs are to do and what the expectations are. They can then mark them off as completed. I saw this on Pinterest but the original idea came from another mommy blog.

I am thinking about making one of the above for each of my girls. If they had their own cleaning kit, might inspire a little more? Not sure about that but might be really good for their own rooms. They can easily clean their mirrors, wipe down their baseboards, and dust their shelves whenever the urge strikes! Here's hoping it strikes at least twice a month!

We have something like the above, but our system is slightly varied. We have done allowances in the past but decided to stop them. Chores weren't being done so we were basically, each week, paying our kids just for existing! WRONG!! My husband and I decided that to live in the Maselli house, have clean clothes, a roof over your head, food on the table, and just be, there are certain chores you have to do. To make money for the mall with friends, movies, etc . . . there are 2 things to do: 1 - your regular-because-you-live-in-this-house chores, 2 - pick extra chores that have been assigned a dollar amount. If said child, does their regular chores, they can pick a chore off the chore chart to earn cash in their pocket. These chores include, wash the cars, weed, wash windows, you get the idea.

So here's to getting our "chore" act together. It's very simple. Set the expectations, let the kids know what they need to do, and hold them to it! I will let you know how it all turns out, but that is for another post!