The Chore System That Works for Our Family {Video!}
I’m back today with another video! Last week I posted my very first video, which was just kind of a trial video to see if I could do it.
Video is actually less time-consuming for me than writing out a full, in-depth blog post, and I’m pursuing simple during a busy season in my life.
Every Friday I take my two younger daughters to their homeschool gymnastics class in another town (30 minutes away from our house). For the first couple of months, I would read books or run errands during the hour or two (sometimes it’s an hour, other times longer) that they were in class. Then one day I thought, “This would be the perfect time to do a video!”
Honestly, the thought of putting myself out there was scary, but then I realized that was a good reason to do it—to prove to myself that I can do things that scare me! 🙂
This year has been so full of growth for me. I’m not even the same person I was last year. I may share more about that later, but let’s just say that if someone would have suggested video to me a year ago, I would have run the other way! My husband was shocked when I told him I wanted to make videos. He said, “What?! You?! What happened to my wife?” He was joking with me, but he was so shocked that I was even considering it!
I’m still learning the ins and outs of making/editing/uploading videos, and I hope as time goes on that they’ll get a bit better. Last time I just used my cheapo android phone, but this time I borrowed my 13-year-old son’s video camera. The quality is better, but I didn’t like how close-up the camera was! And it was in the 80’s today, so I was getting kind of hot in my closed-up vehicle!
Also, I really had no intention of making such a long video. I just started talking and lost track of the time!
If you’re viewing this in an email or feed reader, you can view the video on YouTube here.
Share Your Thoughts and Suggestions!
I’d love to hear your thoughts about this video, and if you have any ideas for more topics I could discuss (or questions I could answer), I’d love to hear them!
Also, I know some people just prefer to read a blog post rather than watch a video (especially one as long as this one!). I haven’t given up on blog posts! I’ll definitely still be posting. I just love being able to also connect a bit more personally.
More Chore System Help
Related Post: A Chore System That Works
This post goes into all the details about how I put together the chore system I mentioned in the video (the one we used for several years).
Hope you have a great weekend!
Sharing here.
I just found your blog tonight and I am reading through many of your posts. A couple of questions , How do decide what to assign to each child?Since you said that you write on the board in permanent marker do they keep the same chores for a long period of time or do they rotate and do different every week? Do you not do school on Fridays at all then? I cant imagine you have time to do school also. We started out planning our homeschool week being a 4 full day and easy Friday But this year we have coop class in the morning and then we are the gym for almost 3 hours. And some days we also have girl scouts after that. So our easy Friday has gotten very full this year. But I do love your idea of Friday being cleaning day. I also was wondering what your chores were for the week. It looked like the boards for your two girls had 8-10 chores on them and you had 5 kids that is allot getting done in a day. What Do you leave for yourself to do? And one more thing do you do laundry everyday still or get it all done on Fridays? I know how much laundry a large family makes 🙂 Thanks for your insight into what works for you. I am desperately searching for something that works well for us.
Hi Carla! I’m actually planning a more in-depth post about chores that I hope to get posted soon. I’ve had several questions about assigning chores and how to determine which chores work for particular ages. Hopefully I can get that post up soon. Yes, they do keep the same chores for a long period of time. We’ve found it works better that way, because then they get to know their jobs very well, and they become very proficient at them.
We do still get school work done on Fridays. My children are 17, 15, 13, 11, and 7, so the older ones can do their school work independently. So, they do their chores early in the day and then do their school work in the afternoon.
Monday is my laundry day, where I focus heavily on laundry, but I also do laundry throughout the week as well, so we don’t get behind.
I’m away from my computer today, so I can’t elaborate more, but I’m hoping to get a more detailed post about our chore system up soon! 🙂
Hi Carla! Just wanted to let you know that I got the chore post published today! Take a look at my new chores post here!
I’m working on the habits in our house, trying to change several that are not very productive or helpful. We know what our chores are, we just don’t know when to do them. We’re moving in the right direction, though!
Your post is featured on the Homestead Blog Hop this week! Thanks for sharing!
Hi Jennifer! Chores can be a struggle, I know! We’re constantly working on habits at our house, too. 🙂
Thank you so much for featuring my post!
I love your blog and have been reading it for a long time. I have 5 children also, and you and I seem to think very much alike. 🙂 One issue I have with chores is probably just part of my quirky personality. But I have the hardest time figuring out what is fair. For instance, my oldest is very diligent about cleaning up after herself on a regular basis (somewhat typical, I know) whereas the others…..not so much. I worry I take advantage of her when I assign chores: she already works hard during the week, and then I tend to assign her more difficult chores on cleaning day because she does them better. The littler kids seem to get off easier because it takes them so much time just to clean up after themselves, that there is never time for them to do a chore that serves the whole family. In other words, not only does my oldest clean up after herself, but she also cleans up after others by cleaning a bathroom/other communal area. I don’t know if any of that makes sense. But in summary, I just struggle with assigning chores in a way that doesn’t seem like I take advantage of the more responsible ones while the less tidy ones get by with less overall. 🙂
Hi Keri! Thank you so much for your kind words, and it’s so nice to meet you! 🙂
I can relate to your concern about chore assignments. I’ve had similar issues. It seems there will always be some children who are naturally more diligent than the others, and we definitely don’t want to take advantage of that. There have been times when I’ve had to rearrange chore assignments to make sure one child isn’t doing most of the work. I’m considering doing a separate post about how we assign chores since I’ve received several questions about that. 🙂
Hope you have a great weekend!
Thanks so much for the video. It was very helpful. I have four kids and would love to get them into the regular habit of chores and cleaning. Did you spend the first couple of Fridays teaching them what you expected? How did you transition from teaching them to letting them do the chore/cleaning unsupervised?
Thanks again.
I’m so glad it was helpful, Davina! Yes, you do need to have a training period where you walk them through what they need to do. I would spend the first Friday helping them get started. I outlined the steps for each chore in detail, and demonstrated how to do it. The next week they would do as many steps as possible on their own, and there might still be questions I needed to answer and help with. How long your help is required probably depends on the child (age, chore experience level, etc.).
They say it takes about 21 days to make a new habit. I would say it took about a month of consistently cleaning on Fridays for it to become a habit for my kids. I do still need to make sure they’ve done everything on their list (inspecting the chores), but they know they don’t get their cleaning day treat or computer time if they haven’t successfully completed their chore list, so that’s a huge motivating factor for them! 🙂
Good for you for being brave! I still feel self-conscious while doing videos (my first one tomorrow morning on how to bake a pumpkin butterscotch cake!!) I’ll pass this on to my niece w/ four small kids. Next to you today at strangersa nd pilgrims.
Thank you, Sue! I look forward to seeing your video—and pumpkin butterscotch cake sounds delish! 🙂
That was very interesting. I wish I would have thought of doing chores that way, when my kids were little!
You’re getting good at doing videos 😉 Maybe you should consider doing Periscope someday.
Thank you, Petra! I’ve thought about Periscope a little bit, but it’s another thing to learn! Maybe someday I could figure it out! 🙂