Chores!

Hadley is three years old.  She is sweet and kind, cares about others, loves to be a good friend, says "I love you Mommy" a hundred times a day (oh, if I could just bottle that up!), and gives the best hugs and kisses I've ever had in my life.  She's energetic, a full-throttle go-getter, no looking back, independent little girl.  She's also trying to find ways to exert that independence and sometimes that takes the shape of defiance, anger, and yelling.  (All perfectly normal stages of gaining her independence, but man can it be tiring!)

We hear a lot of, "NO! I DON'T WANT TO!" and "THAT'S NOT WHAT I WANTED."  Accompanied with a lot of bossy behavior followed by some pretty sweet sucking up to get something she wants.  She has figured out the game and our typical time-out tactics aren't working as well anymore. 

Things we have figured out:

- she only acts like this at home.  Her teachers say she is such a delight and is a great friend to everyone at school.  

-she doesn't act like this with other family or friends.  She is a people person and being around others who will give her all the attention is one of her happy places.

-she does it at home for mom and dad.  She's testing her boundaries and I'm so thankful she does it with us and not with others!

But, man, I have felt quite a lot of pressure lately to "get it right"!  It's my job to train her and as she gets older that "training" is going to take different forms.  I love her energy, her creativity (I mean the girl can talk you into ANYTHING.) and I just want to make sure those skills help her become a productive member of society one day!

So, I had to revamp our techniques recently and Hadley is the proud new owner of a chore chart!

 

I thought very hard about what I want to teach her and what I want her to learn from these chores.  If we are honest, this hasn't made my life any easier because it isn't about having "help" around the house (yet!), but raising an impactful community member.  

I wanted her to know she is an important member of our family and because she is an integral part, it's important that she help keep our household running.  I want her to learn about good hygiene and how it affects your health.  I want her to learn that in order to keep our house orderly (not spotless), we must pick up our things and put them where they belong, I want her to learn that there is joy in taking care of our things and our home.  I want her to learn responsibility and to respect authority, 

even if we don't always agree.  There are a million things I want her to learn, but I really want her to learn these things while remaining true to herself.

I don't want to diminish her self-worth with constant time-outs or constantly being separated from the family (we DO still do time-out when it's needed.)  But she needed another outlet.

How it works:

Hadley is smart, but she can't read yet, so I knew I wanted the chore chart to have pictures.  The pictures represent what she has to do each day and when I first introduced the chart, we sat down and talked about what they all mean.

I did some research on things she should be able to do at three years old.  There are quite a few things three year olds should be able to do and I didn't want to overwhelm her.  I decided she should have 5 chores each day.  The first four are things she has to do absolutely everyday.  The fifth one is something that I will ask her to do.   

1. Brushing Teeth: she has to brush her teeth everyday (obviously we help with this), but she's learning about good hygiene.  She is learning to squeeze small amounts of toothpaste on her toothbrush.  She brushes first and then Daddy or I come behind her to finish up.  

2. Laundry Basket: we have little baskets in each kid's room for dirty clothes.  Each morning and evening Hadley has to put her dirty clothes in the basket.  Griffin gets a kick out of this, too and knows just what to do with his clothes if we tell him to put them in his basket!

3. Bible Verse: Hadley has a weekly bible verse she has to memorize.  I want her to know God's word in her heart, be able to recall it as she gets older and times get tougher.  I want her to start forming a relationship with Him and while this isn't the only thing we do to help initiate that relationship, memorizing scripture is important.  It also helps that I memorize scripture, too, so she enjoys getting to ask me to say my bible verse. ;)

4. Putting Toys Away: We have a basement full of toys and with 2 kids, it constantly looks like a tornado has gone through.  I try to pick up when we are all down there playing, but my two kids are faster at pulling things out than I am at putting them away!  So, she now picks up toys.  We try to keep similar toys together because it's important to take care of our things and we want all the pieces to play with next time.  She also picks up the toys in her room.  

5. Random Chore: Everyday she has to complete one extra chore and that is determined by me.  If I'm doing laundry, I may get her to help me fold socks or washcloths.  If I'm putting dishes away, I may get her to help me unload the silverware.  If I'm cooking dinner, I may get her to help me put ingredients in.  Sometimes, if she's had a really off day, her chore will be listening to Mommy with a happy heart.  

Each time she does a chore, she gets to put a sticker on her chore chart for the day. If her WHOLEchore chart is complete at the end of the week, she gets to pick ONE prize out of the prize box.  The prize box is full of all kinds of different things (the movie Aladdin, a box of bandaids, bouncy balls, small bags of m&ms, window markers, stickers, etc.).  

I don't stay on top of her about her chores.  If she's feeling particularly crabby about doing chores, I will say " remember the whole chart has to be filled out...." but she's generally very excited to put stickers on her chart.  She loves helping out and will say, "this is a chore, right Mommy?!"

It is so much fun watching her grow.  What ways do you teach your kiddos?  I'd love to hear!