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In Life as Mom, Life in General

We Are Family: Child Chore Training, Pt. 3

Author Kiel LemonPosted on Leave a comment

Welcome to the final installment (for now) in this series on Child Chore Training! Last week I gave specific examples of what this currently looks like in our home. Today I want to share how and why we pay our children for doing chores.

I guess we should start with why we chose to pay our son for his chores every week. First, we decided at age six he was ready to begin learning some basic money management skills. We want him to grow up with an understanding of how much things cost, how long it takes to earn enough money to actual buy something worthwhile, and how to save and give back to God some of his earnings. Also, even though he does chores because he is part of the family, we feel that paying him now gives him an idea of what it will be like to work for an employer some day. We told him early on that if he did not do his chores when asked each day, he would not get paid, just like an employee does not get paid when he or she fails to show up for work. So it is an additional motivational tool to get those chores done! Plus, our son is at that age in which kids start to want to buy things themselves, and his is into Legos in a big way. We have never been able or willing to buy toys just anytime throughout the year, saving those things for birthdays and Christmas. So now he knows that he can earn his own spending money and save it up for as long or short an amount of time as he wants before spending it on that new Lego set he has his eye on. But he already has learned that the longer he saves, the better!

As to how we pay him, we started out with a rate of $.05/year of his age, so he is currently paid $.30 every Saturday. We will increase his pay as his responsibilites increase, probably right around his next birthday. I have sometimes allowed him to earn an extra nickel in the week if he has been especially helpful with extra chores that were not on his list. Yes, this is a small amount, but we do not have a big budget as a family right now, and he really does not NEED much of his own money yet anyway. It is more about the lessons learned than the money earned!

Since part of our goal was teaching him how to manage his money, we divided up his earnings into three categories: spending, long-term savings, and offering. Because I did not want to be counting out strange amounts of pennies each week, rather than divide his $.30 into exact percentages, I simply put $.20 into his spending pouch and $.05 into both the savings and offering pouches each week. We found a set of 3 matching zippered pouches in the school supply section at Walmart last year, and they have been perfect for this purpose!

In case you are wondering, my son is not allowed to spend from his savings until much later in life. This is truly meant for long-term savings and can only be spent on something big, like a car or college. We will eventually open a savings acount for him for this purpose. The offering money is supposed to go with him to church every week. You might not believe it, but he gets a real thrill out of putting that nickel in the plate eery Sunday! I cannot totally take credit for how we do this whole payment for chores thing, since I originally heard about it from organizing guru, Mystie Winkler of  Simplified Organization. (That’s my affiliate link, by the way, because Mystie and her courses are AMAZING!)  In case you want to hear how she and her family does it, here is her Youtube video “Paying Children for Chores“, so can get more inspiration!

So, that’s it from me! Now I want to hear from you! Do you pay your kids for helping around the house? If not, do your kids get an allowance? I am curious to hear your repsonse!

In Life as Mom, Life in General

We Are Family: Child Chore Training, Pt. 2

Author Kiel LemonPosted on Leave a comment

Last week I shared a little about how we started with teaching our children to be contributing members of the household by doing some simple chores. I thought that this week I would give a few more specifics about how this is currently working in our home. My 6 year old son has a few different categories of jobs to do every weekday. Saturdays and Sundays are usually chore-free days, although he knows that we may ask for help with special projects on the weekends.

Each morning he has what we call his “Morning Routine.” These are things that are done before leaving the house or doing schoolwork. The Morning Routine includes making his own bed, getting dressed, eating breakfast (he never forgets that one, ha!), brushing his teeth, coming his hair, and practicing the piano. To help him remember all these tasks, I printed up a visual checklist and laminated it, then taped it to his bathroom mirror. We took it down when we put the house on the market, so now I just have to verbally check in with him to make sure he remembers everything, but it has become pretty habitual for him now. He rarely even leaves his room in the morning without getting dressed and making his bed! #Winning!

The chores that earn him money are divided into daily and weekly jobs. Daily jobs are simply to put away all his toys every evening, to tidy up his bookshelf before bed, and to make sure his dirty clothes get put into his hamper. He also is responsible for taking his dishes to the sink after every meal (we do not use a dishwasher, or else he would have to put them in there) and cleaning up any outside toys he played with when the weather is nice. Weekly chores are things that are different depending on the day or the week.

One day he gathers all the small trash cans from around the house and puts the trash into the big garbage can in the kitchen. He is teaching little sister to do this job, so in a year or so, he will not have this chore anymore because she will do it by herself! He also wipes down the mirror, sink and counter in his bathroom one day/week. He also is learning how to clean toilets, but I still have to supervise that one a lot. He is learning to vacuum the couches on vacuuming day. He can use the Swiffer to dustmop the kitchen and living room when needed. He helps me unload and put away groceries on shopping day. But the biggest job he has weekly is to do his own laundry, start to finish, including checking all his pockets (!) and putting everything away in his dresser when everything is clean and dry. This is probably his least favorite chore because it takes so long to be really finished. But it is probably the one that helps me out the most, so I LOVE it! 😉

Next week I will share how we are currently paying our son for his jobs and what he is learning about money through this experience, so stay tuned!

If you are looking for more ideas on chores your kids can do, depending on their age, Pinterest or Google are your friends! There are several chore lists divided up into appropriate tasks for children from toddlers to teens! Will your kids be learning new ways to help around the house this summer?

In Life as Mom, Life in General, Uncategorized

We Are Family: Child Chore Training, Pt. 1

Author Kiel LemonPosted on 2 Comments

Before my husband and I had children, I worked in a private fine arts preschool. The school used several different methods from a variety of early childhood education philosophies, one of which was the Montessori method. The children were taught from the day they started at our preschool how to take care of several self-care and classroom needs, like tidying up after their own messes and helping with classroom chores. Even though the children did not always do a very good job of sweeping up crumbs or wiping up spills, they were learning and being trained in these important habits. They knew that at school, at least, everything has a place, and it was everyone’s job to help keep our school looking neat and tidy.

Years later when we had a child of our own, it became important to me and my husband to train him to learn to help do the same here at home. We are both naturally pretty organized people and do not like clutter. From the time my son was old enough to put his own toys away, we began teaching him to help clean up his playthings at the end of the day before getting ready for bed. As he grew older, we added more responsibilities to his daily self-care and family job routine.

Last year, on his 6th birthday, we started paying our son weekly for helping with things around the house. This was in part because we felt it was time for him to start learning first hand about managing money, and partly as an incentive to be more a more helpful contributor to the family. I will admit we have not been as consistent or as proactive in teaching new skills as a lot of families may be. But I am not a Type A mom, and this is what works for our family right now. A lot of moms say they start teaching new chores over the summer when they don’t have a busy school schedule, and if we were not getting ready to move, we would probably do that now, too. But I am not starting any new routines until we get settled into a new house!

We have done the same with our 2 year old daughter, teaching her to do as many things for herself as she can. Unlike her big brother, however, she is highly motivated and independent, so she actually wants to do more than she is able to at this point! I guess that is a good problem to have, though, most of the time!

I have a few specific examples of what we do around here for kids’ chores, but I will share those in another post. I will also share how we do payment and divide up my son’s earnings each week. I hope you will come back for the next post in the series soon!

So, talk to to me about chore training in your house. Do your kids help with housework? If so, what are their responsibilites? If not, do you wish they did?

In Life as Mom

When you feel like a failure

Author Kiel LemonPosted on Leave a comment

It has been “one of those days.” I think everybody knows that being a parent is not all sunshine and roses. We all have difficult days when it seems that our best efforts to discipline in love, to stay calm when our kids are tantruming on the floor, simply are not enough. We snap back and punish harshly. We throw a big fat tantrum ourselves. Our children fail on a daily basis, and so do we. And often we get to the end of the day and wonder, does that mean that we are failures, too?

Maybe I am the only one who feels this way, but I doubt it. Because I am responsible for setting the tone in my home, I blame myself for a lot of the kids’ mistakes. After all, they do learn from what they see me doing. If I don’t always respond to them in love, I cannot really expect them to do so very much of the time, can I?

Yet, I also know that Satan loves to heap guilt and shame on my hurting mama heart, causing me to feel defeated and discouraged. His accusing words that I am a failure, that I will never change, that I am ruining my kids, all pile up with so much weight that I can easily feel as if I might as well throw in the towel and give up before I’ve even begun. My tendency to perfectionism does not help. If I cannot do something without messing up, I am prone not to even attempt it at all. What is the point if I know I am just going to fail?

But in motherhood there is no giving up, no choice but to attempt to do better tomorrow than I did today. So what is a beat-down and discouraged mom to do? That is the question I am asking myself tonight. And here are some of the answers that the Holy Spirit is bringing to my weary heart and mind.

1. PRAY

Seems obvious enough, at least if you are a person of faith, right? But other than a quick, “God, help!” right before freaking out over a child disobeying for the 500th time that day, do we really take the time to stop and pray over the matter? I, for one, know that I have not spent enough time truly praying for wisdom and discernment as to how to deal with specific behaviors; nor have I prayed enough over my children, that they would have tender hearts open to my guidance and teaching and to the Holy Spirit’s own work in their lives. Busted! Yeah, I definitely need to pray more.

2. Find my identity in Christ.

Satan’s lies are just that: LIES! In order to combat the negative, defeating thoughts he has planted in my mind and heart, I must fill myself up with TRUTH from Scripture about who I am in Christ. Jesus says I am victorious. He says I am an overcomer. He says I am more than a conqueror. He tells me I am His. He will be faithful to complete the good work He has started in me. When I was in counselling for post-partum depression after my firstborn, my counsellor gave me a list of Scripture references for just this purpose. It had all the statements made in the Bible about the believer’s identity in Christ. I guess it is time for me to dig that out and start doing some intentional Bible memory in this area.

3. Seek godly counsel.

I have a stack of parenting books on the end table beside me. They all deal with topics related to grace-filled discipline and reaching the heart of my children instead of just correcting the outer behavior. I need these words of wisdom from parents who have walked this road before me. I only wish I would have started reading them long ago before some very bad habits got so ingrained in my parenting. But it is not too late to start the change.

I also am thinking about asking some older homeschooling moms for resources and book ideas for some specific attitude and behavior problems we have been having with my oldest. I think we need to really focus in on some character traits that are weak (in both me and him!), even if that means taking a break from our regularly scheduled school books to do so. And since many moms have been through these stages before me, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. I just need to seek out that good advice and take it!

4. Breathe. Relax. Slow down.

The good news is that my children are young yet. They are still moldable and not set in their ways. A lot of the problems we are having are just ages and stages issues. We will get through this. And tomorrow is a clean slate. Sure, we have been through some rough patches lately, but that does not mean we have to let that define our family culture. We are in the midst of a move, a financially tight period, and a lot of change and upheaval is yet to come. It is ok if some things slide for a little while, if the school work gets a little behind or if we eat a little less healthy for a short time or if the kids have a bit more screen time than normal because I need to pack and clean. We can relax and breathe and have a little fun instead of always trying to push through and be perfect in the midst of the stressful time. Just take it one day at a time, I tell myself. Breathe. Smile. Look around and count your blessings. Tomorrow is a new day.

I am not a failure. And neither are you, weary mom. Maybe you had a bad day. It’s ok. Give yourself grace. His mercies are new. Go get some sleep. Pray for yourself and your kids. Find your value in Jesus love. Listen to the voices of truth, not lies. And breathe. We can do this! I’m praying for you. Will you pray for me, too? ❤️