It didn’t take long before we realised that our family needed a little help with getting a daily routine together. Especially when my 5 year old daughter started kindy this year.
Simply telling her the things she needed to get done in the morning turned into constant reminders and then turned into nagging and frustration.
I originally started with a homemade list of things to do, down the left on the “to do” side, were laminated pictures of activities that she needed to do each day, and then once she had done them she could move them over to the “done” column.
This worked for a few months and then we all became complacent. We would forget about it, and my daughter seemed to become bored. We also realised that simply adding an activity such as “put your lunchbox and drink bottle in your bag” became quite a task with me needing to find an appropriate picture, then printing and then laminating it. Not so simple at all.
One day while at Kmart, I stumbled across these great magnetic organisers! Wow how amazing was the transformation, and it was instantaneous.
Each board comes as a kit with everything you need, including markers and the magnetic stars to mark off when they have done an activity.
My suggestion is to place these boards in a common area, ours are on the outside of the pantry door in the kitchen. Our old lists were inside the door as they weren’t very pleasing to the eye, but having them visible to us all has made a huge improvement, it especially helps us to remember and stay on task.
I allowed my daughter to choose two rewards, one for if she did every activity for the week and one for if she did at least 50 activities. This way if she does all of the activities she received both rewards. Her rewards of choice were an ice cream and 7 x warm and fuzzies (a behavioural reward system that we have where a fuzzy pom pom can be placed in a jar upon parents recognition of good behaviour, once the jar is full she can choose a family activity for us to do together and then the jar is emptied and she starts again).
So far, she has completed every activity on the board each day, with very little prompting.
Another great thing about this chore chart is that you are able to write precisely what activities you would like your child to do. Some charts that I have come across already have the activities printed which wouldn’t quite work for every family.
Left: My Chores board $8 Right: Weekly Planner $10
Many of my relationship clients who have children will ask about time management, school mornings are often the biggest struggle, I share information about our system at home and the couples do find that it also improves their time management and routines at home. It gives the children some power and control over their day, and they get very excited when they get that reward at the end of the week.
If you have any questions or feedback about this system, please comment below or feel free to contact me either on my website or on Facebook.
Leisa Macnamara