Create a Help Wanted Message Board for Family Matters
After a long week at school, kids don’t necessarily want to spend the weekend doing household chores. They watch TV better than vacuum. Or build a new Lego creation instead of folding towels. (We kids, too. So are we.) They can be especially resistant to chores that go beyond their usual jobs – do you want me to feed the dog, empty the dishwasher AND pull the weeds ?!
However, it is important for children to participate; they are part of the family, and the family is a team. And every week there are additional tasks or tasks that need to be completed by the team. Elizabeth Ellison writes for Scary Mommy that when she got tired of her sons whining about raking, watering, or cleaning up the trash, she came up with a new system: she created the family’s Help Wanted message board and hung it upstairs. – the transport area of her house.
this is how it works
During the week, each family member writes down activities that they think will need help over the weekend and posts them to the chalkboard. Tasks should be “reasonable in size,” which the Allison family defines as being completed in one hour. This could be cleaning the toilet, exercising your words, or doing yard work.
Requests for assistance (two per person) must be submitted by Friday evening and completed by early Sunday evening.
While everyone looks at job advertisements during the week, no one makes any commitments until Saturday morning. During this time, each family member signs two published job applications. I have found that my boys have a greater sense of control and are more willing to take on their responsibilities when they can choose their jobs. To this end, adults choose the latter so that children have more tasks to choose from.
Jobs are victorious! – are crossed out as they are completed, and the whole family gathers at the end of the weekend to reflect on how much has been done and to thank each other for their help. There is pride! There is gratitude! There is harmony! And, most importantly, the nagging has decreased.
Allison says the partnering aspect of this system even gave her another opportunity to interact with her kids:
Moreover, no one is driven to the corner of the house to work alone, as sometimes happened before we used the board. Instead, each of us enjoys companionship and companionship while we work. More than once, my children spontaneously told stories about what happened at school when they were sweeping or washing dishes next to me. For me, these spontaneous conversations are the happiest unintended consequence of the way we do our homework right now.
The board also gives the kids time to mentally prepare for the fact that their weekend will indeed involve a little work, and being able to choose how they help can give them a sense of responsibility for the task.