At MOPS this week, our speaker spoke about teaching responsibility to our children--through chores and allowance. Chores and allowance are not necessarily tied together for her, but she did speak on both. Out of each week's small allowance, each child divides it into his/her own "save," "give," and "spend" boxes. The savings goes into the child's bank account; the give money is for church and giving gifts; the spending money is where the learning occurs! The child is free to do whatever he/she wants with the spend money. So, a child who keeps spending that money on things from the dollar bin at Target will realize (eventually) that if she wants something specific that costs, say, $10, then she'll have to refrain from those $1 purchases until she can save enough for the $10 thing.
The speaker also gave some good ideas on assigning chores to different ages of children, how to implement and keep track of them, and how to present them to the kids (a chart, or individualized index cards presented at breakfast each day, etc.). So I finally kicked in gear in this parenting area and actually assigned some chores this week. Before I even assigned any chores, Nate asked for a chart. (I could have predicted that one!)
The "10 things" is another idea from the speaker (though hers was 20 things): Find 10 things that are in the wrong place. Put them away in the right place.
It's still a work in progress, but Nate was thrilled to do the laundry today. I mean thrilled. (I wrote out step-by-step instructions for him.) And Lucy was very proud about sorting the laundry (which she practiced this morning). Levi already loves "helping" empty the dishwasher; I just have to think of a couple more appropriate yet helpful chores for him.
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