Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Children And Chores- I Need Suggestions

As a child I did not have chores and so I struggled quite badly to learn to keep a house clean and still struggle to this day. My house is not horrible but it is not nearly how I feel it should be. I would love to have a house that is presentable at any time to visitors. As it is right now I would need about 30 minutes warning so that I could tidy up and make me comfortable enough to have people over. I know that I should not expect a perfect house as there are 6 people living here and 4 of them are under the age of 10.

I have struggled with how to teach my children to help keep house as well. I don't want my children to be little slaves but I feel they should help out in the house. I struggle most with my 10 year old. He acts lazy. I know he isn't lazy because when it is something he wants to do he will do a good job and put effort into it. It shows in school as well as home. He loves math so he puts effort into his math and does well at it. He doesn't like reading so he chooses not to put much effort into his reading by picking books that are at the very lowest level acceptable to his teacher. He likes to watch TV or play video games and so he does well at vegging out and doing that. He doesn't like to help in the house so when I ask him to do dishes he puts the 10 largest items in and says he is done. I ask him to pick up the toy room and instead of putting things in their proper place he just puts them where ever they fit. He knows this is unacceptable to me and I make him redo these things. My struggle is how to get him to do things properly the first time. How do I get him to show pride in doing things right when they are not things he likes? I have already tried doing a chore chart, allowance, and taking privileges away. None of those worked with him. I have tried explaining to him that he needs to do something to help every day because he is a part of this family and unless I bug him to do it he will not do anything. Do you have any suggestions on how to get him to want to help out and show pride in the things he does even when he doesn't enjoy them?

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