The summer can seem soooo long! I mean, the kids are either bored all the time or they are so tired after camps all day that they are crabby through the evening. Maybe you are home with them and finding all kinds of fun things to do. Or, maybe your kids are older, and they go off to a friend’s house, and you don’t see them for a couple of hours. No matter what you are doing, there is always lots of time to kill through the summer!
The summer is a great time to upgrade the chore chart. Use the summer time to teach the kids HOW to do their new chores and let them get used to adding new things into the routine. Talk it up as if they are so much older and wiser now, and that’s why they can tackle these bigger chores!
Give them incentive! If screens are what they want, then use it to your advantage! Make them a bare minimum chore chart. Everything on that chart must be done to get, let’s say, 30 minutes of screen time. These could be tasks like read for 20 minutes, write a short story about (insert the topic here), or even, work through a math curriculum book for 20 minutes. This minimum chore chart should have on it your biggest priorities for your kids – often that’s academics, but it doesn’t have to be. If your child struggles in social settings, you may have a requirement to hang out with other kids in a respectful manner for 20 minutes. Whatever it is that you want to encourage your kids to excel at, that’s what this first level of chores is for. It’s the bare minimum of what should be done every day.
Getting the rewards, though, can be addictive and this is where boosting your chore chart comes in.
Kids are actually more willing to do work than we, as protective/caring parents, give them credit for. The summer is often about killing time, and all the kids want to do is play online or chat with their friends behind a screen. Gone are those long, lazy summer days where you could be lost in a small woodsy area playing tag only to be called home when the street lights came on. Things are just plain different now.
Make the most of their desire for their screens and give them a chance to earn some bonus screen time. If they want to do extra chores because they want to play for an hour instead of 30 minutes, make them work for it! Teach them a bit about delayed gratification and hard work and how they fit together in order to get through life successfully.
Create a separate secondary chore chart. Make these chores a little bit harder than the first grouping. This chart is age dependent. If your kids are young, have simple tasks like helping mommy empty the dishwasher or walk with mommy to get the mail. As your kids get older though add things like do your laundry (start to finish! Wash, dry, fold, put away!), have them clean a toilet or even the whole bathroom, have them help plan a meal or two for the week, or even have them detail the cars or mow the lawn!
Making our kids work isn’t about child labour, it’s about instilling a good work ethic and to feed them that pride that we all feel when we know we’ve worked hard and truly earned a good break. Show your kids that they can be independent and give them the skills and knowledge to do it confidently!
Now go figure out what kinds of chores you’re going to delegate this summer!
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