Chore Chart

Life Skills for Teens

I had my chore list for up to 13, but I was floundering for non-academic things I needed to teach them after 13. A friend asked me for my list with this title. (That meant I had to make one!) This will change for each kid and I'll hopefully add many resources, but here's my start....

Social Skills

• € telephone answering & taking a message
• € initiating a conversation & small talk
• € eye contact & confident body language
• € conversation skills : listening, responding, not interrupting, appropriate volume & content for situation
• € Manners - Table and otherwise
• € How not to be quite so devastatingly honest
• € How to say no without losing friends.

Academic Skills

• € Public speaking
• € being able to write a solid paper
• € being able to manage a project himself
• € read maps
• € plan routes
• € Computer : typing & familiarity with Word, Excel, Powerpoint & Publisher
• € Organizational skills for that child's learning style : planning, time management, prioritizing, follow-through
• € cooperative learning skills

Personal Skills

• € independent cooking
• € Laundry - how to wash/iron/mend clothes
• € cleaning
• € basic home repair
• € gardening/lawn work
• € run a household for a week: including meals, housekeeping, and caring for small children
• € Plan and pack for an overnight or a four week trip
• € first aid
• € How to mail packages.
• € How to renew a passport.
• € Personal safety, Self-defense 27min

Auto Skills

• € Change oil, a flat
• € Check tire pressure, radiator fluid
• € How to pump gas, jump a battery
• € What do do in case of an accident
• € Snow Driving

Financial Skills

• € Manage Finances - set & live with a budget
• € how to use a credit card BEFORE going away to college
• € understand : mortgages, car payments, investing, common mistakes
• € Shopping - online, at the store, with a budget and goal in mind

College Skills

• € To look assess one's work and ask for help if needed -involves reading a syllabus, figuring out percentages (so you know how much a particular assignment is going to affect a final grade), and tracking grades -Ability to analyze a test and figure out which bits are understood and which bits need more work -know about office hours
• € Tying stuff on the roof of a car
• € How to take a tray through a cafeteria line
• € Putting your name and phone number on the inside of all your books and notebooks and anything else you want returned to you if you leave it laying around
• € How to get home, if need be (train, bus, plane)
• € How to take a taxi if the designated driver didn't stay designated
• € How to limit your electronic social life and game playing so it doesn't interfere with your ability to open your laptop and do your work
• € How to play foozeball or pingpong or hackysack or some of the other games that tend to lurk in the bottom of dorms
• € How to ski or rockclimb or whatever other pastime one's friends in college are likely to want to go do that might possibly lead to a broken leg when first tried in the presence of new friends

2010 Summer School & Chore Plan

The kids will be learning tennis through Lifetime Sports Academy this summer for FREE!

Summer school will be June & July

• We'll do Mapping the World with Art with all the kids.
• The 2 school-aged boys will also do Exploring Creation with Botany
• The girls will finish up Ellen McHenry's The Elements : Ingredients of the Univers (Chemistry).
• Dd#1 will also be taking a short online summer camp for Latin through Homeschool Connections.

In addition to summer school, the each of the kids have a few subjects they need to finish up from the school year. Anyone not on grade level, will have to continue that subject through the summer as well.

• Ds#4 puzzle books & math drills
• Ds#3 reading, spelling & math drills
• Dd#2 grammar book & math book
• Dd#1 spelling & math book

We'll also do our annual chore training for May. Summer will continue training in their new chore so they'll be prepared to fly alone by the time school begins in the fall.

• Ds#4(8yrs old) off trash/half bath/kitchen floor - onto emptying the dishwasher
• Ds#3(10) off laundry - onto keeping the kitchen clean
• Dd#2(12) off kitchen cleaning - onto cooking dinner all year
• Dd#1(14) off budgeting, choosing meals, shopping for & cooking all meals - onto....ummmnnnn....uhhhh.....

This is a tough call. My master plan was that they'd know how to do each chore for the family by the time they were 13. She's succeeded.

I don't know how difficult high school will be for her and don't want to rely on her around the house if she'll need the time to study. I don't want her siblings being slaves to her while she lounges around, either. I was hoping to help them learn to juggle multiple responsibilities in their teens, but that's not really a chore. I guess I'll give her Ds#4's responsibilities and expect a MUCH higher quality of work than a 7yr old. Trash/bathrooms & kitchen floor are things EVERYONE but the 2yr old knows how to do, so if she needs let up on some work anyone can jump in AND she should be able to do them easily and quickly. I'm sure I'll continue to ask her to do jobs as she sees they need done and she's getting pretty good at that. I don't think the other kids will understand, though....

Yes, my 13yr old is really in charge of all the meals, planning, cooking and shopping for the year.

Yes, my 13yr old is really in charge of all the meals, planning, cooking and shopping for the year.


Background:

I read Little House On the Prairie to the girls when they were in 2nd grade & Kindergarten. In it, Ma left the girls (I think they were preteens) with the baby and the house for a week! They knew how to do all the work AND did the spring cleaning to surprise Ma.

When I first read that, I thought "HOW could Ma leave them like that? There were soooo many dangers in those days!" Then I started re-rethinking what I thought of childhood. I honestly believe we have an artificial infancy concept of childhood. Rather than considering that childhood as the training ground for adulthood, our society thinks children are to be coddled, entertained and considered unable to be functioning, contributing members of society even while they're children. Hmmm.... So if God made children capable of more responsibility, are we DISabling them to not let them live to that potential? Hmmm....


So I made it a pie-in-the-sky goal that each of my children would know how to do every job in the house that I could teach them by the time they were 13. Then at 13 I would teach them to juggle. I wasn't taught how to multi-task or juggle and it's taken me YEARS of motherhood before I felt like I was doing anything but failing. I would like my girls to be a little better off than that.


Each year, each child switches jobs to become proficient in a job for the year. This is the rough schedule of chores as the children progress in maturity:


Age 4 - Set the table
5 - Sweep the floor
6 - Wash the table / Mop the floor
7 - Take out the trash
8 - Empty the dishwasher (each time, and YES I lost alot of dishes on the ceramic floor this way and we ended up switching to plastic for our main dishes)
9 - Laundry (yes, all the laundry in the house)
10 - Mow the lawn - we end up having a "catch-up" year in here somewhere - a kid will prefer a job and ask for an extra year on it before going to the next harder job -OR- they need more practice on a job and get stuck on it for another year until they've mastered it.
11 - Dishes (keeping the kitchen clean after every meal)
12 - Dinner (I plan and they learn to cook dinner each night. I feel like it's such a challenging task to get all the dishes to come out at the same time and on the table hot (or cold) that it takes a lot of practice)

13 - Since Dd#1 has taken over the cooking / list making / and shopping (although I am the driver and looker-overer) I tried to make it as easy on her as possible.

• I consolidated all my recipes in one book that office depot printed and bound for ~$5
• made a master grocery list
• lists for each kinds of meal (breakfast, weekday lunch, dinner & weekend lunch - we add extra servings & sides when Dave is home)
• I have a system in place for meal planning that I can teach her
• I made an excel spreadsheet of the meals I make, how much they cost and the approximate ingredients. She inputs the number of meals into one column and it calculates how much she'll be spending for the month. This is just automating meal planning for her benefit - I did it for years without a spreadsheet. When I put in the approximate ingredients, I didn't put it in the way you cook (4 Cups of milk) but the way you shop (1/8 gallon of milk)

Here are the steps

1. Make a list of which meals she'd like from each category (breakfast, weekday lunch, dinner & weekend lunch )
2. Plug those meals into an actual calendar to make sure she isn't making 3 chicken meals in a week (Dave's allergic to chicken).
3. Compare that list to the actual recipes to make a list of ingredients you'll need at the store.
4. Make a grocery list. (I have her consolidating step 3 & 4 by using the spreadsheet above.)

Besides the blank stares of disbelief, here are the answers to some questions I've gotten about my 13yr old doing this job --

Q: Isn't that too big of a job for a 13 yr old.

A: I don't throw a 13 yr old into this. They want to help stir cookies when they're 3. They learn to use the microwave under supervision when they're 7. They learn to make eggs & pancakes and breakfast stuff when they're 8. They learn to take things out of the oven when they're 10ish (depends on the kid). Doing the laundry for a family of 7 is no slacker's job and it's a big responsibility at 9 years old. For the kids who don't handle responsibility well, I provide consequences, rewards, reminders, timers, threats, encouragement -- and anything I can think of to help them shoulder the responsibility. Not including swiching laundry loads, it takes about 10 hrs/wk for a kid to fold all the laundry. These gradual responsibilities help train them to carry the next set so they're not overwhelmed when they have to run their own lives.

Q: Don't you feel like it interferes with your own spirituality not to serve your family in love?

A: It's much harder for me to let her do it than to do it myself. Yes, she's burned some meals. Yes, some haven't turned out. Yes, I'm taking a risk with our family's budget to have her do this. These are things that cause me to die to self in love of my children to help them become the people God means them to be. I'd rather her take these risks when she's under my tutelage than when she's broke and out on her own with no one to help her when she makes a mistake.

Q: Does she have any time to do anything but work?

A: It does take her quite a while to make meals (2 1/2 hours for a dinner I could do in 30-45 minutes) but she'll get faster. Meal planning takes about 5 hrs for the month using the tools above. Shopping takes about 4 hours for 1 month's worth. Yes, she gets more free time than I do, but less than the little kids. I'm not worried about overloading her with work. I definitely keep that in mind and check with her to see how she's doing with this much responsibility. With responsibility comes privileges (and she's happy for those).

After 13? I have a Life Skills for Teen list we'll be tweaking for each child.

Cleaning Day

Usually Saturday is our cleaning day, but we're having our priests and seminarian over for dinner tonight, so we're cleaning today. Everyone has been very helpful and are all earning alot for their allowance today. They're doing jobs like washing the dog, picking up the back yard, vacuuming & doing dishes. We've had to scrape dried cereal off diningroom chairs so grown-ups can sit on them, wash baseboards & walls & windows & doorknobs (always a sticky job).

Some kids are more excited about their individual jobs than others....

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Pork Chops were on sale, so that's what we're having. Here's my recipe :
Pork Chops Use the following as a rub on the chops - 1tsp salt 1/2 tsp pepper 1/2 tsp sage 1/2 tsp thyme bay leaf pinch allspice 1 clove garlic, mashed then, for the crockpot add - 1/2 cup water Crockpot for 8 hours on low and enjoy!

Kids Chores

How do I get my kids to do their chores?

Well, I insist on it. I've seen parents that are afraid to act like the parent - I'm not. They don't do anything fun until they do their chores. If they fight me on it (yell and cry) they go to their room until they're ready to do it -- joyfully. In our house, we believe our children are each a gift from God to our family. We also believe kids are capable of much more than today's society gives them credit for. I also treat them like children in that I use tons of encouragement and am satisfied with their best effort -- EVEN WHEN IT DOESN'T MEET MY ADULT STANDARDS. I'm not a drill Sergeant in making them make their beds over and over until it's perfect. On the other hand, I may make them re-sweep the floor if there are glaring spots they've missed. BALANCE, is called for and not making chores something they hate (they'll complain enough without us, as parents, making it worse.)

If we're talking about a laziness issue -- that's a separate post.

As a tool that teaches to the heart, I've found that firm, but unemotional discipline coupled with loving times (pats, glances, chats) to be fantastic. We made this Virtue-Vice Chart as a tool that slows down the discipline process and allows me time to think how I want to react rather than having to react immediately when I'm angry and can't think.

Basically, I'm the parent and since I believe chores are GOOD for my children, I make them. Some children naturally respond to this better than others. Do I allow them to go outside without their coat in winter -- even if they want to ? Nope. And I don't allow them to shirk their responsibilities to each other by not doing their chores.

What ages should I start chores?
My toddlers ALWAYS want to help. It's the hassle of my life (along with car seats). Even so, I let them help me. I give them a hand towel to carry while I carry the rest of the laundry. I pick up their doll and have them put it away. We make a game of picking up their blocks and toys. I reward them for their efforts, even when it's less than adult standards.

By the time they're in preschool (ages 3 or 4) they have their own daily chore (helping set the table) and are expected to pick up their own toys, sometimes with help.

What chores are appropriate for what ages?
There is lots of information on this online.

• http://www.printablechecklists.com/checklist11.shtml
• http://www.thefamilycorner.com/parenting/growingpains/3.shtml
• http://housekeeping.about.com/od/chorechart1/a/ageapprchores.htm

The chores my kids have this year, are
5yr old : sweep kitchen daily
7yr old : empty dishwasher daily
9yr old : clean 1 bathroom per day, mop floor once a week & take out trash once a week
11yr old : do dishes daily

They keep their daily jobs for a year and then we switch. We cross-train in the spring when school has ended for the jobs they'll have for the next year. That way they have all summer for me to follow-up on them and remind/retrain on the right way to do their job before they're just expected to do it on their own when school comes in the fall. I try really hard to make the retraining part not be a time when I'm frustrated and yelling at them for what they're not doing right. I want to empower them to do it, not frustrate them into discouragement.

They also have to clean their rooms (no allowance for that -- it's just an expectation), clean up after themselves, and whatever chores I ask them to do during the day. If they do them joyfully, they get an allowance.

My long-term goal is that they'll know how to do just about everything in the house by the time they're 13. Then, in the teen years, I'll teach them to juggle and multi-task to pull it all together. So far, we're mostly on track!