Chore Chart

After a particularly frustrating hour of church with our two youngest children, David and I came home on Sunday determined to change something around here.
That hour was just the last straw. The fighting, bickering, screaming, and spouting off everyone's new favorite word, "Poopy," (unfortunately completely out of context) were all running rampant. Some children may respond to the "ignore the behavior and it will go away" school of thought. Not mine. If not contained, their bad habits will just continue to spread like a plague, dandelions in our lawn, or a case of the stomach flu through a preschool.
I decided we would try something new--a chore chart. If they had time to fight, they could use some of that time to work around here.
I downloaded a chart from the Internet and made three copies. I gave a handful of jobs to each child, and told them that they would have these jobs for just one week. Then they would change. When they finished a job for the day, they would get a star. They were so excited, they wanted more jobs. And then they wanted a star for everything! That wasn't happening, so we gave each of the boys a more general job entitled "Helping. . . ." This star is given at the end of the day if they have been helpful to their family members.
The only reward is the star and that seems to be enough. I will pick up some sticky stars next time I'm in town to make things a little more fun. There's just something exciting about earning a sticky colorful star! It reminds me of all those years of summer reading program growing up and putting up my star in the library after each book read.
We're only two days in and I've been a mom long enough to know this excitement won't last forever. However, I am enjoying it while it lasts! I hope changing it up every week will help keep it from getting monotonous for them.
Meanwhile, my living room and their toy room have never been cleaner--and I didn't have to do anything!