Chore and Responsibility Boards

Way back in June I started dreaming up this idea while having a brainstorming session with Beth on the drive down to Fort Collins. I knew that I wanted to create something for the little man that would help him move toward independence in his responsibilities and eventually address chores and allowance.

After a lot of thinking and dialogue about how we wanted this to look and work, we came to a few conclusions:

1. Everyone has responsibilities when in a family and those are not things that you earn money for. They are things you do to simply help out your family. In M.'s case his current responsibilities are primarily getting himself ready and taking care of his room.

2. A job is something that you make the choice to participate in and there are natural consequences if you don't - you don't get paid. For right now, M. can choose to complete up to five different chores and get paid 5 cents per chore. The money will be paid once a week and will go into his various money jars, which you can read more about here.

So M. and I took a trip to the store and picked up two cookie sheets and he was able to pick out letter stickers and ribbon. We then returned home and took pictures of the various things that he needed to complete out of responsibility or for chores.

Then it was my turn to get creative........

We hung the boards in our hallway so he sees them easily. We also went over the boards a week ago on Friday and he instantly got to work! I went to tell him that it was time to get ready for bed and he had already put pj's on, his dirty clothes in the laundry and cleaned up his toys! I think that I could get used to this!

He does love giving himself a tally mark below each picture once he has done that, and even shouted at me one morning, "Don't make my bed, I want to do that!"

As of right now, he could care less about the money. What he really wants to know is when he gets his special date with Aba!

*M. was able to redeem his first date with Aba! Micah gave him the choice of going for a hike or watching a movie and eating a special snack. M. chose going for a walk to get the movie and then stopping by a restaurant for a tasty treat. As we sat down to watch the movie, he kept saying, "This is so great. This is so much fun!"