It’s still a work in progress, but hey- we ARE making progress! The kids are earning money, our house is a little cleaner, I’m not having to work as much- it’s good!
Week 4:
Not bad! There are times that I give the kids a “pass” because they have other commitments that prevent them from being able to do their chores or reading/practice time. But did you see that Brooke only missed two items for the week? Wahooooo!!!!! She is still earning “tablet time” instead of money. Miss a mark, no tablet the next day. Miss 3 marks, no tablet the whole weekend. It seems to be a good motivator for her.
Trevor and Riley both opted to recite a poem so that they would go from minus 1 (half their allowance) to zero (earning their full allowance). Those Shel Silverstein “poems” are really odd.
We were late paying this week’s allowance, and also didn’t get the next week’s allowance chart hung until Tuesday. This was also Christmas week, so Trevor just “assumed” they were getting a week of vacation and wouldn’t need to do their chores. Um, no. Riley still did hers, even though the chart wasn’t hanging.
Here’s how Christmas week looked:
A mess.
On Thursday (the day after Christmas) Trevor pulled the “I have to pay 5-bucks anyway, so I’m not going to do any of my chores, what’s the point? I can’t earn anything now!” and I pulled the “if this is your attitude we will stop this allowance thing right now. Your checklist is not optional, it’s not “do it if you feel like it”, you will do these things whether you get paid or not.” And that was that!
Brooke still struggles with being distracted by the tablet…and now that she also has an iPod Touch, there’s even more distraction. Last Monday I was cleaning under the stove and found an old laminated checklist that Trevor used back in elementary school (yes, it’s been under there THAT long I guess?) and I had her start using that instead. It was a little outdated and non-customizable, so now I just print out a sheet for her.
Here is Brooke’s checklist for the week:
This freed up some space on the bigger kids’ checklists. Now they have a detailed job description so there’s no “Oh, I didn’t know I was supposed to do THAT!”
All in all I think this program is working out very well! And I’m loving not having to do the kitchen clean up every night!
Elisa's Ramblings 
I’m a little concerned about the kitchen dog poop chore =:)
Well it should be really easy since the dogs aren’t allowed in the house :) The kitchen table vacuum doesn’t bother you? :)