Chores
Our children do most of the housework, while I add my, er, managerial skills to the equation.
Our current chore list generally assigns a room or area to maintain throughout the day, and 1 additional cleaning job to each of the 5 oldest.
Here's what it looks like right now:
Deanna, 13yo: Maintain laundry room; clean bathroom
Kaitlyn, 11yo: Maintain dining room; trash
Lydia, 10yo: Maintain living room; sweep kitchen
Megan, 8yo: Vacuum living room & dining room; take care of dogs & rabbits
Natalie, 6yo: Maintain deck; rotate laundry (carry out dry laundry, move wet stuff to dryer)
Becca, 5yo: Kaitlyn's helper
The girls are divided among 2 bedrooms, and the residents of each room are jointly responsible for their laundry.
Dishes are done after breakfast & lunch sometimes by me and sometimes by whomever I tell to do them. I will often assign 2 who are bickering to "practice working together peacefully by doing the lunch dishes." [evil laugh]
Dinner dishes are divided into 2 "shifts," which rotate monthly.
- 1st shift duties: put away leftovers; clear and wipe stove and counters; put away any clean dry dishes from earlier in the day; sweep.
- 2nd shift duties: wash and rinse dishes; dry and put away large items; wipe around sink area; set up coffee for morning.
Chores change ~every 2 months. The children would like to see it happen more often, and I would like to see it stay the same forever, so we compormise.
Hubby is generally happy if it's posted conspicuously so he knows who to blame call upon when the bathroom is getting grimy or he gets cheerios stuck between his toes in the kitchen.
We'll be changing again soon, re-assigning and slightly revamping the list. When we change, I let the children have a limited amount of input: they can request certain jobs, but they realize that they won't necessarily get what they want. I consider several factors:
Who had the job last?
How well did she master the job?
Is it a much hated or generally desired job?
How well did the requestor master her jobs during the previous cycle?
Is she capable of doing the requested job?
Our children do not receive allowances for doing household chores and upkeep; they receive Room & Board. 
They do, however, have other opportunities for earning money. The hardworking, ambitious child whose regular responsibilities have been finished can nearly always find a paying job around the house.
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Filed under: Huh? Category?
Just wanted to say I really appreciate your sense of humor
Wow! I’m going to need that sort of organization one of these days.
Question: do the kids generally do the chores in a timely and quality manner?
if so, how do you accomplish that without much threatening?
I am wondering how you handle deep cleaning type stuff, and if you inspect the children’s chores daily.
Great post….I totally agree on the no allowance (room and board). Still don’t know how you do it!
I think there’s a lot of wisdom to the saying, “Inspect what you expect.”
I don’t always inspect every chore, but they definitely get done in a more timely and consciencious manner when the children expect me to inspect.
Deep cleaning chores are done on an as-needed basis, by whomever I tell to do them.