My Blog Adventure!

Welcome to my blog! It's high time this 48-year-old ventures into blog world and joins the ranks of you intriguing bloggers. First off, you should know I love the Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart. I love His Creation, His Word, His forgiveness, His mercy, and His being the Savior of my life. He is my reason for living! After the Lord, my next love in life is my outdoor-lovin', prankster pullin', hard workin' man I've called my husband for 24 years and counting. My 3 sons - to whom this blog is dedicated - have the next piece of my heart, and they fill my world with laughter, love, and laundry. I am calling this MY BLOG ADVENTURE... so hop into blog world with me... let's get to encouraging one another... this could be fun!

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Habits: Earning Priveleges

We are near the close of our school year, and it is always this time of year that I notice our dc are becoming lax in their chores (usually because I have become lax in checking them).  We don't allow the dc to watch much television, so being able to watch a children's video, or being able to do computer, are things our dc look forward to doing when they can.

So, rather than just allowing the dc to play computer for around 30-45 minutes each day as I had been doing during these long winter months, I decided to have them begin to view computer time and video watching time as a privilege to be earned each day.

I have simple charts the boys are to follow each day.  Each child has a body check, a room check, and a chore chart to work through each day.  I decided to award up to 10 minutes for each of these (which results in a maximum amount of 30 minutes of time), as well as up to 10 minutes for cheerful / excellent / complete work in school, and up to 5 minutes for "extra effort" (which is my way of encouraging our dc to "see work on their own").  On a very good day then, they could earn at most 45 minutes of computer time or video watching time (they can choose which they want to do each day), which is what they were doing anyway before without earning it.

We are only 4 days into this, but I cannot tell you the difference in their attitude and work effort toward these things!  They feel proud of their work and what it is "earning" them, and I am so happy with the change.  It DOES require me to jot down the time they earned, but this is worth it as the results have been amazing!  Here are the little forms I made for each of the dc....

I cut these apart and stapled them together in a packet of 5 for Monday through Friday for each child.  I had to laugh as today is Saturday, and they brought me the little packet and told me they were ready for me to check their charts!  They also informed me they had cleaned the whole playroom and picked up and vacuumed the living room in order to earn their "extra effort" minutes - they also brought me a cup of coffee.  They asked if they could earn extra "extra effort" minutes this way as there would not be "school" minutes awarded since it was Saturday.  I didn't even intend to do this on the weekends, but why not?  As I am sipping my coffee right now sitting in a clean living room with my dc happily earning their computer privileges - I am thinking, why not on the weekends too?

This can work in many ways and can be tailored to fit your needs and goals as a family.  First, just start by figuring out what needs to be done in the home as far as chores/habits.  Then after clearly teaching how to do these chores/habits, "prized privileges" can be identified.  These privileges can then be earned by completing the chores/habits you've taught.  I hope this concept of "earning privileges" can help some other busy moms too!

In Christ,
Julie

4 comments:

  1. Ok Julie, I love the idea, but I need more info. What do you consider a body check, room check, etc? Would you mind listing some examples. I've been terrible at implementing chores this year and would love to hear a little more about how this works in your home. I love a good chart! Thanks again for your sweet prayers for me in Greenville. (I was the sick one.)

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  2. I'll include these on a new blog entry - great idea for an entry that may be helpful to moms in some way!

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  3. Julie, Thanks so much for this! The boys have Nintendo DSi's and they have become a problem. I went over this with my husband and we've confiscated their DSi's and they now have a game minutes earned chart they will have to do to get to play them.

    Thanks again!

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  4. Paige - The media interests are something to monitor with our dc too. I hope the earning minutes works as well for your dc as it has for mine! The general daily responsibilities have been going so well now for my sons, but the "extra minutes" part has become my favorite thing as they are now looking for work that needs to be done on their own. Yesterday, my oldest ds swept the floor and vacuumed the basement on his own to earn 3 extra minutes, and my middle ds cleaned the entryway to earn his 3 extra minutes. They were so pleased to earn their extra minutes, and so was I!

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