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It's a Hard Knock Life

Or so Kenzie would lead you to believe sometimes. As Kenzie is getting older, we are getting more strict with requiring her to do specific chores. Our goal is to teach her some responsibility and respect for her belongings as well as her home and us.

We have always pushed manners with both kids. Kenzie is great about saying sir and ma'am. Will and Kenzie are both amazing at please and thank you. Will even said excuse me (which sounded more like "scue me" and was adorable) the other day and he told Kenzie "sowy" when he ran into her the a few days ago. I'm calling that a parenting win! However, we have been having a difficult time not only pushing for Kenzie to do chores that are age appropriate, but also adhere to a plan and stick with it. We all have those nights that we are too tired and I tell the kids that we will worry about cleaning the playroom in the morning because my goal is to get them in bed so I can have a few minutes to think without little ones hanging on me.

We started by making it more and more common that Kenzie is required to clean her own room on her own with no help. At times, we will assist her with certain things. For instance, putting her books away can be a bit difficult because of the container we use and she sometimes needs a bit of help. Then we started pushing that she clean her room either every night or before she is allowed to leave her room in the morning. The reason for that is that in the morning we usually watch a tv show when we first wake up so requiring her to remain in her room makes her more likely to clean quickly or at night in order to get the TV incentive. When we do things like clean the playroom, we help because we want Will to help as well and typically, it wasn't only her that made the mess. Will is actually a great helper and loves to help clean up and put things away (though I now know from experience, that may not always stay that way.)

Kenzie also likes to feed the dog with us. We have to help her to a point just to make sure that there isn't a trail of dog food from the container back to the kitchen where his bowls are, but she does a pretty good job. We have worked with Kenzie on setting the table at night sometimes. She actually really likes to set the table but it isn't our focus right now.

We decided that it was time to create a chore chart for her. We tinkered with the idea of making one that we could put stickers on but then I saw this on a TV show I was watching and fell in love. Anyone that knows me well, knows that I love, love, love Melissa and Doug products. We have so many in this house (everything from puzzles to a car carrier... or two... to magnetic dress up dolls and even more) and both kids usually like them as well. So, when I saw this, I knew I wanted to see what Steven thought. He ended up liking it too and we decided to go ahead and get it. It comes with numerous little chore ideas as well as magnets to indicate that a chore was done each day so she can monitor how she is doing and we can implement an incentive for her to encourage her completion of the chores.


Sidenote: This is Kenzie's chart listing her chosen chores for now, but the completed areas are not hers. I just stuck some on there so it looked nice. Haha!

She thinks this thing is AWESOME! She refers to the completion magnets as "badges" and keeps asking if she can get a badge. We are not that sure how long she will continue to be excited with it, but we are hoping it works. We do have a few rules.

For instance, she can let her room get as messy as she wants, as long as it is clean at the end of the day. Or, she can clean her room throughout the day, but if it is messy at the end of the day, she loses her badge. Same goes for cleaning up toys. By the way, cleaning toys and cleaning room are different for us. Cleaning toys is related to helping us clean the playroom. We will see how she does with these and maybe make some changes periodically to change it up a bit as necessary. Also, she has to clear her plate at all meals, but if we are out to eat, then as long as she behaves well at the restaurant, she can earn her badge.

We are working on determining a reward system for her. As of right now, if she gets every badge in a day, then she can have 10 minutes of iPad time before bed. Also, there are 35 possible badges in a week right now. So, if she gets 30 of them in a week, we are thinking about letting her have some ice cream or something or maybe going to get Italian ice periodically as a reward. We will readjust that goal as time goes on. We might be setting our goals too high but we want to challenge her and see how she does.

It's a pretty cool little board. It is even able to be customized as you can write on your own chores. Eventually, Will is going to have one too but he is still a bit young. I'm excited to see how it all works out. I wanted to share it with everyone for a couple of reasons. 1. Tips? Tricks? Ideas from anyone? and also 2. This thing is cool. Maybe someone else out there could use it.

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