Tuesday, April 21, 2009

As long as it is called Today: Christian parents (April)

Welcome to "As long as it is called Today." Our focus on the third week of the month is to encourage one another as Christian parents. I hope you will join me each week on Tuesdays as we encourage each other in our daily lives as Christians, spouses, parents, and home keepers.

We had some good answers to last week's question. It really blessed me to read your thoughts and ideas about Bible study with your spouse. Go check out every one's answers and ideas.


Today's question: Share your tips and ideas about children and chores. This can be things you have done, plan to do, or that your parents did with you.

My answer: With Caleb we've had a chore chart with three chores per day. He gets a sticker on the chart for doing that chore. At the end of the week he gets a dollar if he has x amount of stickers. We did this for a while and have slacked off, I need to get back on it.

Dave Ramsey has an interesting concept about chores/allowance that I think fits with this concept today. His idea is "you don't work, you don't get paid." He said some parents say you shouldn't pay your children for doing things to help the family. Dave says you don't pay them for every item they do. You teach them some things you just do to be helpful (like everyone takes their dinner plates to the sink after eating to help out Mom). But other things you give them their requirements and how much you will pay them for completing those tasks. It is more of a real-world scenario than just giving a child an allowance every week "just because" because if you don't do your job someday then you aren't going to get paid for it.

I was going to type what I did for chores as a child but I won't and let my Mom do that if she wants. :)

I look forward to reading your answers! Have a wonderful Tuesday!

7 comments:

Denise said...

Have a great day sweetie.

Amanda said...

Lets see... mostly our kids help out with the little stuff...bringing dishes to the sink after they eat, hanging up coat when done, picking up clothes and putting them in dirty clothes hamper.

We don't really have any plan in mind for an allowance. My kids are too young to need money...

I think we just are easing them into cleaning... at least, thats the nice way of saying I am just doing everything cause I am not teaching them to yet. :(

Great question!

God bless-
Amanda

Melanie said...

We do this at our house. Each of my kids gets an allowance each week ($ amt equal to half their age) and then we have a list of 3 other chores for which we will pay them extra if they do. For each of these chores they get an additional 25 cents. It works great for us!

"Momma" : ) said...

Okay, I'll add the way I did it when you were at home!!!

I made a chore chart during the summer and you would mark off the things that you did. You got to pick an activity..........such as bowling, swimming, movie, that you wanted to do each week! I continued this with Chelcie (your cousin) when she stayed with us and it seems like it gave you something to work toward!

There were some things that you did, as normal daily chores that weren't included on the charts.

Christine said...

This is a great meme idea! I might have to jump in next month. I'm glad you found me from e-Mom's blog. Look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks!

sister sheri said...

Our son gets a new chore each year... and a raise in his allowance... except this year because since daddy is taking a pay cut... we thought it would be a good way to teach Christopher about economics... and pitching in... and he was all for it! Well, we'll see about that since tomorrow is his birthday! and he'll start getting the new chore... but not the new allowance!

I started him off with pairing socks. Then taking out the trash. Added folding most of his laundry (except that which I fold right out of the dryer to keep it less wrinkled!).... Not sure what this year will be... He is going to be 10 tomorrow!

bp said...

Comments weren't working, here is Debra's answer:

we do not have an allowance for Josh but he has a set schedule of chores now that he is older and making his own money. When he was younger he did get an allowance and we had a chore schedule posted up for him.