Jessop Family Chore Chart 2010

This past month for Relief Society we had a Myth Busters night. We learned quick and easy cleaning tips and how to use household items for a variety of things. I was asked to teach a mini class on how to get kids to do chores. As is always the case, the teacher ends up learning more than the student! For the activity, Jill Revelli printed up personalized chore charts for each family. Too cool!

I don't like the negative stigma that "chores" makes you feel. So when I explained the chart to the kids we talked about the value of learning how to become responsible and independent. Kristen was so excited to be included...especially for her turn for dishes! Joe was ummm, shall we say...belligerent to see his name on the chart. Afterall he's the one who brings home the bacon so why should he be on a chart? Oh boy....but I pressed on.

I explained to the kids that I now have a backbone and intend to use it. No longer are the excuses but I have practice, or I have too much homework, or but I have Young Men or Young Womens....valid excuses. Everyone will start pulling their own weight or else we will all start losing our privileges.

I am sad to say that week1 didn't go so hot. Implementing a new system is hard work. And yes we are still going a million directions and the kids are still in need of training as far as how to clean the bathroom (toilet included) as well as simple things like how to mop. I am being patient with the new system and we are giving it another go this week. At least everyone likes how the chart turned out. Even though the chart came with some great graphics, we needed to add on several jobs so I drew my own symbols.

The first one is of a tv. Simple enough right? It means to clean the bonus room/tv area. Imagine how surprised I was to hear the kids exclaim, "Sweet, I get to watch tv on Tuesday!" No, no, no, you get to clean the tv room on Wednesday! And then my brilliant symbol for the restroom was a picture of a boy and a girl. You know like they have on restroom doors in public places. I didn't think it was clear enough so I put the initals WC which everyone knows is the european abbreviation for restroom right? Well the kids thought it meant Will and Carlie because the W was under the boy and the C was under the girl. Jansen was thinking,"Sweet, I never have to clean the bathrooms!" Wrong!

So other than a bit of confusion regarding the symbols, we are ready to rock and roll. We discussed in detail what each job requires as you will see from the following post. Wish us luck with our endeavor to have a more clean and orderly house. We're gonna need it!