Children and chores, part 2 - Personal chores

I have been asked to share more detail about our chores, so here is what we do for "personal" chores. As with so much of parenting, I truly believe it boils down to modeling. When I began to expect my children to make their beds, I had to be sure I was consistently making mine!! And then I had to make their bed many times, with their help, so they would know HOW to do it.

So, starting very young (age 1) I would fold up their pajamas after getting them dressed in the morning and ask them to pull open the drawer so I could put them away. I would fold up their blankie and then give it to them and say, "put this on your bed", then they would lay their pacy on top of the folded blankie. In this way they were beginning to learn how to care for their own personal things.

Then when they are around age 4 they get a checklist to hang in their room. Yay! A checklist! (I'm being slightly facetious here). I sit down with each child and make this together with them. It has both words and pictures on it, since at this age they are not yet reading. It is divided into morning and evening, with a sun beside the morning chores and a moon and stars beside the evening chores. We talk about each item as I draw the corresponding picture. This checklist slides into a page protector and then gets taped up somewhere at eye level in their room.
Here is one of our checklists up close:

This has helped them know what I expect them to do in the morning and evening. After they have become very proficient at completing their checklist on their own, we start working on doing it within a reasonable amount of time. I keep timers in all our children's bedrooms, and for their checklists I usually set it for 10 minutes. The older 2 boys no longer need to look at their checklists to know what to do (and in fact a couple items on their original checklist no longer apply), but I still say, "go do your checklist" and they know what I mean. If the checklist is not completed when the timer dings, some form of punishment follows. Right now it is the taking away of a nickel (remember they get 10 each morning?). I have taken away up to 5 nickels for this offense, depending on the circumstances, and I have to say that most of the time the children are pretty good about completing their checklists thoroughly and quickly.

This has eliminated so much frustration for me, because I don't have to stand there telling them each little thing to do, and the checklist can be the bad guy. If I notice that something on the checklist is not done and the child is already downstairs, I will find them and ask, "do you have the freedom to be downstairs?". This forces them to go upstairs and look for themselves to see what was left undone. Hopefully it is training them to be more OBSERVANT!! (I cannot tell you how many times I have said, "pick up your socks" and they cannot find said socks even though they are practically standing on them!).

This has worked very well for personal chores in our home. I would still love to hear more ideas about what has worked well in yours!