Customizable Printable Chore Chart for Kid’s Daily Routines
Am I the only one who has tried to start a chore chart or responsibilities list only to have it last maybe a week before we all forget about it? I’m sure it didn’t help that when this was initiated my oldest, at the time, was quite young. Expected responsibilities for little children can be vastly different depending on the child and change quickly as they get even just a little bit older.
I imagine the last time we initiated a chore chart we were flying by the seat of our pants.
I’ve gleaned valuable ideas from other seasoned mamas in regard to family responsibilities in the home and expectations for how everyone should be helping.
One idea I came to appreciate was in one family the children have their age-appropriate chores assigned to them and they were simply expected to do them. There was no payment or no reward. The parents made the point that they don’t get paid to mow their lawn and if they wanted to hire someone they would have to pay them. When their kids decide they don’t want to do their assigned chores they have to pay their parents by giving up privileges in the home.
Now I don’t love that entire concept but I do appreciate the reality in shows. I also value that these parents are showing their kids that all should be expected to help throughout the house and have pride in the care they take for their belongings.
This work should not be incentivized by money but by a desire to care for what they’ve been given.
Another option for encouraging your little ones to help around the house is to offer a reward in exchange for their work. Depending on what the child is motivated by might determine what reward this could be. It seems that a very popular reward these days is “screen time”. I know for my oldest this is highly motivating for her.
As children get older and more responsible some chores will help them to earn money or an allowance. This is a great time to teach a child about how to deal with money, how to save, tithe, and spend appropriately.
As we’ve transitioned to homeschooling we needed to maintain some stricter routines while we are at home. This includes giving our child some added responsibilities so that she was helpful and productive even when we weren’t doing school. The extra help was also needed to keep up with household demands.
Like I mentioned we’ve tried various chore charts in the past but nothing has worked until now.
Grab this Customizable Printable Chore Chart for Kid’s Daily Routines Free!
As we considered so many options we blended together some ideas we loved to create our own chore chart and rewards system (more on this in a moment). While keeping it fairly simple it’s easy to know exactly what chores my daughter is expected to do and in exchange for her help, she has some different options for rewards.
We selected chores that were not current habits that she was already doing and we also chose chores that encouraged her to spend extra time improving her skills and gifts. At her age, she is able to get dressed and brush her teeth everyday but she wasn’t making her bed. So until this becomes a habit we’ve added it to her chore chart. We also give her options to earn rewards for spending more time reading than what is expected of her or practicing her piano.
As she completes a chore or tasks she checks it off the list for the day. We keep track of how many chores she did that day and then she earns points.
We use a point system that is tracked by tickets for her rewards.
We have two envelopes next to her chore chart. One is marked “Turned In” and the other is marked “Earned”. At the start of each week, we give her 5 tickets in the earned folder. One ticket is equal to 30 minutes of screen time. She then earns tickets as she completes chores and tasks. At the end of each day we count up her points and she gets those tickets in her “Earned” envelope. If she wants to watch TV she takes a ticket out and turns it in.
We also use this system to teach about money.
At the end of the week, we take the “Earned” folder and count all the tickets that she has left. Each ticket is worth $0.25. She will get paid at the end of the week based on how many tickets she has left. If she chooses to not have as much screen time and is really good and doing extra chores she will make more that week than if she didn’t do as much.
I know this post is about routines and not money however, I feel it’s important that whenever you decide to give your child an allowance to explain to them the basic responsibilities of money handling and the values your family has on how you choose to spend and save money. This is so important to learn even at a young age.
We are also using this system to help with discipline.
We were struggling with how to discipline our daughter when she was misbehaving and simply taking away a privilege was not working. We know there are so many ways to go about this and this is not our primary way for correcting her but it is one way to regulate her behavior. Whenever she misbehaves we take a ticket away from her “Earned” folder. This will ultimately affect how much screen time she gets and the amount of money she makes at the end of the week, but she is also emotionally effective by this and wants to do better.
This customizable printable chore chart is perfect for kid’s daily routines and expectations around the house because it’s so simple it can be used however you decide. You can choose if you want to give your children rewards or simply track their progress as they start to care for their home.