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Ye Olde Responsibility Chart

DUM DUM DUMMMM…The Responsibility Board.  Oh yes.  We need one of these desperately.  As you can see, there are rules and rewards in the center and the bottom six cards are their responsibilities (those are also in the little packets hanging from the side of the board).  I read a book on assigning chores and this is the outcome.  I didn’t want to call them “chores” though because I needed to add homeschool in there and I certainly don’t want them thinking of that as a chore.

The torture, up close for your inspection:

The hard life.

The bottom right is going to be a doozy. They’ve been fighting like Chicken and dogs lately. The other things are so easy they shouldn’t be a problem, though I am not sure how I’m going to handle where they keep the rag to clean off the table. I have a special rag holder, but it’s up too high for them to reach. Oh the tedium. I guess they can leave the rag on the dishwasher handle. The house has been in an absolute state of clutter uproar the last month or so, what’s an errant dishrag?

They each get a chore packet, which contains the chores listed on the chart. I’m going to make – let, they actually like these – them pin it to their clothes for a few days until they get the hang of what to do when. I had to draw out Rhys’ chores since he can’t read. So after he gets dressed he either has to brush his teeth or wash a canoe, artistic interpretation depending.

Both are equally taxing.

This is a picture of their reward chart. They are expected (again – we fell off this wagon) to respond to direction immediately, cheerfully (yes ma’am with a HUGE CHEESE – okay, just “yes, ma’am” or “sir”), finish the task thoroughly, and unconditionally. That is a nice way of saying “NO WHINING.” We are in a season of perpetual whining and it’s going to stop, now.

Dave and I both went over this with them tonight and they’re excited about the possibility of rewards:

I'm totally marking "TV" off there because if they don't watch some TV each morning I don't get any coffee. That's MY reward.

Dave thought one thousand stickers was a lot, but I think they’re capable of getting like 40 a day, if I ask them to do 10 things and they do them all appropriately, so that’s really only like a month’s worth of obedience for a trip to Frankie’s – which is not cheap. I’m also not using stickers, just check marks with a dry erase marker, but I’ve already laminated the sheet that says “stickers” and I am not making a new one. I love that laminator. I should start making fake IDs. NO! Mind! What is wrong with you? (please visit a little bananas for an update). Just laminating random things, that is legal.