Kids and Chores

My daughter turned five this past November. This is an exciting time because Kindergarten starts next year and this means more responsibility and feeling like a "big kid." This also means her time outs are 5 minutes instead of 4 and her time out does not start until she stops crying. The time out system we use is from my favorite parenting book "1-2-3 Magic" by Dr. Thomas Phelan. I've read this book three or four times and made everyone in my family at least attempt to read it. I let my brother know, if he was going to discipline Claire he had to read the book. We are now always on the same page which keeps things consistent and works great for her.


While discussing with my fiance' what chores she was capable of doing, we attempted to create a chore chart with magnets, which she loved because playing with magnets is fun. The problem is we didn't have a reward system that was consistent enough. For example, I would tell her if she stayed dry at night for the week, I would take her to the "cookie shop" . When it came time she would be in an awful mood and I simply didn't want to take her anywhere. This of course was frustrating for our little 5 year, who wanted her cookie! I searched and searched for other options for chores for 5 year olds and found a few articles. Here is an article by a Parenting website that I enjoy. Then I came across a brilliant website called My Job Chart. It is a free online job chart that connects with Amazon.com for rewards. You have to check it out! Each job is worth a set amount of points and each point is worth one penny. They can save their points to go to their store and purchase rewards that you pre-select for them. It is all up to them. It is hassle free chores. This is definitely my new favorite parenting tip.