A Free Chore Chart and Tips on Family Chores

Posted on 11.17.09 in Parenthood and there are 8 comments.

A Handy Chore Chart

Imagine This...

You are reclining on the couch in peace and comfort, eating a tasty snack whilst your lovely children are HAPPILY washing dishes and sweeping the floor.

For a few fleeting moments, this was my reality last week. It was really neat to see them all pitching in. My friend Kristin sent me this handy chore chart and it’s really helped inspire my kids to do their jobs.

We are just now starting this journey of doing chores consistently. Better late then never, right? Here are a few other things that have helped us.

Family Chore Tips

1. Do your chores. We can’t ask our kids to do their chores if we aren’t trying to be faithful to do our own. Doh. Convicting, eh?

2. Make it fun. If there is a chore that your child WANTS to do, then, by all means, let them do it (unless it’s dangerous, of course). One of my kids likes to do dishes, so I let her do them anytime I can. We also have one of those microfiber mops for sweeping our wood floors. All the kids think that’s pretty fun. Finally, we have a stick vacuum for our tile floors and even my 2 year old son loves to use it.

3. Deal with imperfection. (I’m terrible at this one....) They’re not going to do it perfectly. They may not even do it right. But the goal at this point is to make it fun and to instill a sense of responsibility and ownership.

4. Keep track. We have a nifty chore chart that the kids fill out each day. They put a star sticker by each chore (or habit) that they complete. They LOVE putting their stickers on and watching their chart fill up.

THE CHART

My friend Kristin showed me this cool chore chart, but I wanted to personalize it for my family, so here’s my version. The first blank is for your child’s first name and the other two blanks are for your family’s last name.

Download original Chore Chart.
Download Kat’s version.

Now we have a long way to go before this is really a habit for the kids, but I think we’re off to a good start.

I’ll love to hear your ideas and tips on how you encourage your kids to do chores and contribute to the family.

Do your kids have chores? What’s your method?

The Comments:

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Obviously no and no, but I read about a really interesting method on Jennifer Bacak’s blog.  They have a “leader of the week” who is in charge of special jobs like taking sheets off the bed to be washed or setting the table that day.  So the leader has extra responsibilities, but he/she also gets extra privileges that day, like picking the tv show to watch or choosing the game they play or whatever.  It seems like a really good way to teach responsibility and leadership.

For some reason, when I try to download your chore chart, it takes me to this page.

Laura,
What a brilliant idea! Thank you SO much for sharing. Ironically, Jennifer Bacak was my next door neighbor at Baylor my freshman year.

It’s a small world…

MamasBoy,
Thanks for letting me know! it’s all fixed now.

This is perfect. We were writing chores out on an index card and then putting stickers on. But we have fallen out of the habit lately. I was just thinking I needed a new system for their chores. Hope my kids are as excited about this as I am!

I like how you personalized it!

This is really a great idea!  I printed some off yesterday and my kids were so excited to check off their chores as they did them. 

My boys have always had chores but this really gives them the responsibility of remembering on their own, without my reminders. 

Thanks for sharing the link! 

We had a chart with the jobs on the left side, then days across the top, and the person responsible under each day.  Each person had a chore, each day based on their ability and age. 

The little ones could wipe the table after dinner, sweep the front porch, feed the dog.  While the older kids’ jobs were more difficult. One kid had to clean the bathroom for the day.  Another kid had to unload the dishwasher, after someone else loaded the dishwasher.

At some point we quit checking, and they stopped doing it.  A couple kids are gone now, so we need a new chart.  We now make the two youngest gang-tackle the dishes, while my son does bathrooms and takes out the trash. 

I like your chart better.  Mine looks like an accountant did it, and did not resemble fun in any way.

Deemus,
You’re last line, cracked me up!

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