We’ve gone through TONS of job charts through the years. I change them every so often: once I find they aren’t working anymore, we’ve moved (different house=different chores), the seasons have changed, or we’ve outgrown them. I think anyone promising a one-and-done job chart is dreaming.  We have a job chart for things the children are expected to do because they are contributing members of our house (required jobs), and then we have job charts for allowance or spending money (allowance jobs).

Required Jobs

First let’s talk about jobs the children need to do simply because they live here. I believe that children need chores to teach them responsibility and to give them a sense of purpose and pride. They want to be helpful. They want to be important to the family. They want to have a purpose. Routine jobs fulfill all of these wants (as well as help me!).

I have two secrets for creating a job chart that will work for your family:

1.     Make it flexible!

You know how some days you wake up ready to conquer the world, and other days you just feel like doing the bare minimum? Our children feel that way, too! Giving them the flexibility to choose which day to tackle their hardest or least favorite chore is powerful. It gives them choice and power, and shows you trust them to make good choices and be responsible.

This flexibility is key when your children are elementary age and older, especially as their extra curriculars and homework increase.

In our house we use the phrase “swallow the toad” which means you do your least favorite/hardest thing first and get it out of the way. (Click here for an interesting read on the origins of this quote.) But we also talk about listening to our bodies and hearts and knowing when you need to take it easy. Giving our children the choice of when to do their chores honors both of these ideas, and puts the responsibility on them, which means less nagging from me.

2.     Write down jobs you actually want them to do (fantasy vs. reality)

I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but how many times have you made a job chart with all the jobs you think you want them to do, but don’t really want them to do? For example, for a while I had “unload the dishwasher” as a job… sounds great! But the kids were never around when I needed the dishwasher unloaded, and our day runs so much smoother when I unload it very first thing in the morning, before anyone is even awake. Another example is when I had “vacuum the steps” as a job, but it’s so hard to maneuver the vacuum that I always ended up doing it.

My advice is to keep a list of the jobs you actually ask your children to do for an entire week, and then turn that list into your job chart.

Here is ours below. You will see that we have daily jobs and weekly jobs, and the chart is laminated. We use a dry-erase marker to rotate the names at the top each week and cross of finished jobs as we do them. I put a few of my jobs on there so the children see me working and crossing off— I believe in the power of modeling! If you’d like more info on your children doing their own laundry, please read my post about it.

  Giving children the flexibility to choose which day to tackle their hardest or least favorite chore is powerful. It gives THEM choice and power, and shows you trust them to make good choices and be responsible.

Allowance Jobs

As the children get older their need for money grows. In our house the money is for things we don’t want to buy, like virtual money for online games (anyone else sick of buying Vbucks and Robucks?). To see how much they really want it, we make them work for it. We’ve gone through quite a few “for money” job charts, and my number one tip is to…

Take your child’s personality into account!

We have a girl who loves to chip away at her jobs little by little, and a boy who waits until the last minute and then does them all in a blitz of chemicals and muscle. Our youngest still has no real desire for money, so he works happily for free 😊 

Due to these different personalities of our oldest two children, we have 2 running “jobs for money” charts.

The first is a monthly list of everything I would love to get done each month. Our daughter and I work on it little by little, and we put our initial/name on a job that’s complete. At the end of the month, I tally her initials and pay her. She’s currently working off an ipad repair bill, which are the subtracted numbers you see in the corner. Each month the debt gets lower… she started at $113!

The second list is actually Jack’s daily to-do list, which is how he prefers to keep focused each day. When he’s in a panic about buying a new Fortnite skin, I erase his daily list and fill it up with jobs I need done NOW. This works for both of us, because he can do things I want done immediately that wouldn’t go on the monthly list—things like bring in all the trash cans, load donations into my car, shovel the neighbor’s sidewalk (they have a days-old baby), shovel the trampoline, take the broken bed frame to Dad’s trunk, unload all the Costco groceries, watch your brother while I exercise… basically any job that I think is worth one dollar that needs to be done today/now. He loves this because it’s immediate.

I should note that our daughter is a saver, and our son is not. Because of this, we often strongly suggest that he does one paying job a day, or strongly, strongly suggest that if he earns $10 in a pop, he should save $2. We suggest. Sometimes he listens; mostly he doesn’t and later wishes he did. Maybe one of these days the saving lesson will click in his brain!

Our Bathroom Job Chart

We also have a job chart IN the bathroom.. It was part of our “required jobs” chart, but it’s much more in your face in the bathroom!

It has pictures of our bathroom for our youngest, who can’t read. I’ve gone over the different jobs with each of them, and modeled how to do them several times, so they know what’s expected. I check their job and help/coach/teach them as needed. It’s a process, and I do still go in there and scrub it aaaaalllllll down when they’re at school. But having them help is teaching them responsibility. It’s giving them the idea that if you leave a glob of toothpaste in the sink, someone has to scrape it off, or if their aim is off someone has to wash down the toilet area… all good stuff. This is part of my system to have a presentable, unexpected guest-pops-over-and-I-don’t-have-to-cringe-in-embarrassment kid bathroom, which you can read about here.

Here are our bathroom jobs, broken down, in case you want to copy, paste, and adjust.

Counter, Sink & Mirror

·      Spray & wipe counter, sink, faucet & mirror, and soap dispenser.

·      Wipe any toothpaste off the toothbrush bins and tubes.

·      Check front of cabinet and wipe if needed. Spray & wipe side of cabinet.

Floor, Walls & Trash

·      Pick up everything off the floor and put away where it belongs.

·      Vacuum or sweep the floor, then spray and wipe it down.

·      Spray and clean the baseboards, door, door handle, light switch, and any spots on the walls.

·      Put a new bag in the trash can and take the trash to the garage.

Tub & toilet

·      Put all toys in the bin, all hair ties to Maria’s room, and anything else where it belongs.

·      Spray the shower walls and tub and wipe down.

·      Clean the toilet, including the floor right in front of the toilet.

Wow! That turned into a super long post, but I hope it’s helpful! I’d love to hear about your job chart successes. Please share them!