Do your kids run all over the house in the morning trying to leave for school but can’t find the report they need to turn in?

Have you ever been cooking dinner only to realize you are missing a key ingredient?

These types of scenarios can occur in any household but when they happen again and again, it may be time to re-evaluate your situation and try a new plan. Sounds like it’s time to get more O-R-G-A-N-I-Z-E-D!!

Routine is the mother of organization and what better way to instill these habits in our children than for them to have regularly assigned chores for which they must be accountable?  The ease and beauty of our “My Job Chart” online chores chart teaches our kids to establish valuable life-long habits that will lead to a satisfying and organized life. It can be customized to fit the needs of your child and your family.

You can turn ANYTHING that needs to be done with any regularity into a “chore” so that My Job Chart becomes the means to creating routines that will benefit our children. We get the most interesting emails from our users. In fact, one mom in California wanted to help her daughter establish the habit of drinking more water so she added it to her chore chart. Here’s what she wrote:

Hi – I just wanted to say thank you THANK YOU for this awesome
service; it has revolutionized chores and daily tasks in our house.
I love anything I can do online, and this was a HUGE improvement
over me scribbling tasks and points and tic marks on a piece of paper.
I hope this service remains free! My 8 year old loves it. I even added
“drink water” to her morning and evening chores, as I was bugging her
constantly to drink more water but she wasn’t doing it.

THANK YOU!!!!
Steph in California

Now, adding drinking water to your child’s schedule might be something you haven’t thought of, but hey, it seems to be working for this family, why not yours? What does your child need help with as far as creating habits and routines that will lead to their being more organized and more successful? Maybe it’s all their personal care; brushing teeth, washing their hair, etc. or perhaps it’s having a checklist of all the things they need to take with them to school each day and getting points for reviewing  the list to be sure they are prepared for the day. You can add their music practice schedule to their “chores.” Whatever it is, you can make it part of their personalized online chore chart and help them become more self-reliant as they log on, do their chores, check them off and earn their rewards; not the least of which will be having more time in their lives for the things that are important to them because the things that are required of them will have become second nature. As you may have heard before, “organization saves time.”

Just for a moment, try to picture a 3-legged stool in your mind.  It generally has a flat round surface from which extend three legs, all the same length and all the same distance apart from each other. When properly built, a 3-legged stool works very well. It is stable, handy and dependable.

However, if one of the legs is missing or even broken, the stool is no longer able to support the weight of someone using it to sit on.  The integrity and usefulness of the stool is compromised. It’s interesting to note that the stability of the stool is also diminished if the lengths of the legs vary. Depending on how uneven they are, the stool may cease to be functional even though all three legs exist. The same is true in helping our kids learn about money and chores. It is not only important to teach our kids how to earn points (which can be redeemed for money, privileges, time with a parent, etc.) but it is equally important that we teach them how to handle what they have earned in terms of balanced and reasonable use of “saving, sharing and spending.”

The 3 legs supporting the stool of financial literacy are also “saving, sharing and spending.” These three “S” words are the Super Heroes of prosperity. When they are all in place and balanced, the stool is stable and functional. They are the pillars needed for a child to understand and experience financial literacy first hand.

Now, imagine a properly balanced 3-legged stool that has 3 support pieces of equal size placed in between the legs of the stool. Adding these 3 supports ensures long and successful use of the stool. I’d like to suggest that the supports consist of parents, training and experience, the very results of utilizing the 3-legged stool of financial literacy.

If parents are able to teach their kids about the proper use of money, focusing on “saving, sharing and spending,” and then allow them to experience the positive results of their efforts first-hand, the parent and child will have built a stool of financial literacy that will serve each of them well all of the days of their lives.

You will find many of the tools needed to teach these things to your children as you participate in our free, user-friendly, online chore chart and reward system at My Job Chart. Join the thousands of other parent who are teaching and motivating their kids to Save, Share and Spend responsibly.

Let’s take a closer look at the word “responsible.” It means being answerable or accountable for something within one’s power, such as a list of “chores” to be done. However, in order to be accountable, the child needs to know what exactly what is expected. How many times have you sent a child to clean their room and when you go to inspect it you wonder how they thought it qualified as being clean? We need to be very specific in what we see the end result as being so that our child will know when the chore is completed. Having their chores listed on their online job chart makes being accountable easy. Being able to check off completed chores gives your child a sense of accomplishment.

The best way to help a child understand what they need to do is for the parent to work alongside of their child at first, showing them the way and giving them tips on how to get the job done. It’s like giving them a “lesson” first. That way everyone knows what is expected. Just don’t expect more than is reasonable. Having attainable goals and the prospect of earning a reward will keep your child enthusiastic about doing his or her jobs.

Making the chores age-appropriate is also important. This is where you will find My Job Chart helpful. With the use of the icons even young children can be assigned simple chores. It’s wise not to overwhelm or over-schedule children of any age.

If you are new to My Job Chart or even if you have been utilizing our system for some time, you will find useful tips on how to best set up and maintain a workable program for your child on the main site and in previous posts on this blog, particularly in “Making the Most of My Job Chart.”

Now, let’s try tweaking that word, “responsible.” You can also think of it as “response – able.” Able to respond; most parents want to raise children that are caring, compassionate, helpful, innovative and dependable. If a child can learn to see what is needed (someone needs help, a mess needs to be cleaned up, etc.) and respond to it without being asked, they are becoming “response – able.” When they realize they’ve made a mistake and their first reaction is to apologize and try to make amends, they are becoming “response – able.” These traits are learned as children observe their parents behave in this manner and as they have opportunities to do the same. Having a system in place where kids are accountable on a regular basis for completing tasks will go far in helping them to become responsible now and in the years to come.

Now is the time to plan ahead for this year’s gift-giving season so that it can be enjoyed worry-free and debt-free. January is ideal for spending a little time with our children discussing the holidays and planning now to save enough throughout the year to be able to provide gifts for those on their gift-giving list. (We would do well to do the same). Doing so is part of a skill set to be found in “Financial Literacy.”

What exactly is “financial literacy?” It is a set of skills and knowledge that allows an individual to make informed and effective decisions through their understanding of money. The economic principles you and your child need to know to make informed fiscal decisions and the understanding of various banking and budgetary products and procedures that affect your financial well-being all are part of “financial literacy.”

Instilling good, fundamental financial skills in our children will have a profound impact on their future lives. Kids need to understand that the money we spend and the money they are allowed to spend is money that is earned; it is income. Too many children see mom or dad swipe a card and walk out of the store with goods without realizing that money was withdrawn from the account in the case of a debit or, that money is owed in the case of a credit card purchase. It is important that they understand one works in order to earn money and then that income is to be managed well in order to provide for the needs of the family.

Teaching children basic money management skills, including saving, sharing and spending should be part of a financial literacy legacy we give to them. Simple lessons in investing (even by means of a savings account) and credit can help them understand at an early age that money can either serve you or hold you hostage. Such knowledge prepares them to make critical financial decisions. Find ways to teach them about compound interest; time is on their side. (Future blogs will provide examples and website links you may want to use with your children).

Albert Einstein said, “The eighth wonder of the world is compound interest.” Here’s a video clip that might surprise you. Would you rather have a million dollars right now or would like to take the end result of doubling a penny each day for 31 days?

A Penny a Day for 31 Days or 1 Million Right Now Today?

As parents, it pays to always be on the lookout for a “teachable moment.” When our kids are with us when we use the ATM or are in line at the grocery store, explain that the money you’re getting or spending is money you earned. Try inventing little systems and games that help them to understand money and its uses. The beauty of www.myjobchart.com/ is not only how it teaches kids of any age the value of work, it also provides actual experience in “earning” something that they can save, share and spend.

We hope this new year is the beginning of many wonderful and happy times for you and your family and that, together, we can raise up a generation of money savvy consumers; young people who know the value of work and the value of saving for their futures.

When your job chart is slapped up on the fridge, it becomes the business of the entire family. Everyone knows who is assigned what chores, whether they’ve completed them, and what rewards are being offered.

But perhaps you want to create chore charts that are just between you and each individual child. Maybe you would like:

To reward your children separately – older children have more needs. That’s the thick and the thin of it. As your children grow, they get more involved with friends, school, and sports or lessons. If you expect your child to help pay for those other activities, you’ve got to provide a way for them to help. Increasing their rewards is the most natural step to take. But do you really want to explain that to the younger kids?

To be the parent – how well your child is completing their chores should be between you and them. Not between you, them, and the other children who would like to tell you how poorly their sibling completed their task. If chore charts are kept individually, you have insight to the progress your child is charting and can help them decide if and when a chore should really be marked complete.

To help those that are struggling – none of your children are going to have the same skill level or comprehension level. But everyone can help. If you have a child that suffers with an attention deficit or who may not have matured physically as fast as their siblings, you can assign them chores that fit them. And avoid your other children hollering about things not being fair.

To give each child more responsibility – when only you and your child know what chores they are to complete, it’s up to them to get it done. Far too often parents wrap rewards into a collective effort (ie, once everyone’s chores are done then we’ll go out for ice cream). That kind of behavior will help your family encourage each other. But sometimes, your child learns more when they are in charge of themselves.

On the other hand, if you’ve found a group effort of getting chores done works best, then you can work that out with your online chore chart as well. It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish as a parent. But at least with a tool as powerful as Myjobchart.com, you have the option. Chore charts on the refrigerator don’t offer much choice.

If you’re like us, you sometimes lament the decline in education. It seems that most young people are unprepared for either college or a career. This may not be because students are lazy or lack intelligence. Sometimes, it’s the basic skills that are lacking. Many students have no idea how to organize, plan, and complete work.

But as someone who has been in the corporate world, you know it’s imperative to learn those skills. No matter what your job description may be, you’ll have a list of tasks that need to be completed. And oftentimes, you are the only one checking to make sure the work gets done. How and when those tasks get completed is often up to you. But that’s not the only way a job chart like MyJobChart.com is going to benefit your child in their future career.

Here are some other similarities:

It’s online – for those who are accustomed to taping a job chart to the fridge, this might be a big change. And it may seem extreme. After all, with a physical job chart, you just check off the box and you’re done. (Of course, then you have to come up with cash for allowance.) An online job chart may be a little bit more work to access. But when it’s online, you can do so much more. You can track what’s been done in the past, save, send, or spend your points, make fast changes to the chart, and learn online skills.

Most businesses have turned to some sort of tracking model. To keep everyone on task and collaborating, companies have adopted solutions like Basecamp or Zoho. Can you imagine how far ahead of the curve your children will be if they’ve tracked their chores on a similar program?

It’s their responsibility – your child has the chance to use their own special login to access their chores. Yes, you get access to their account and you’re notified with an email when rewards are earned. But for the most part, your children are responsible for checking what’s on their list, completing their work, and updating their account. Sound like something you’ve been doing in your job?

It gives your child choices – Myjobchart.com is a lot more complex than just finishing chores and putting a check mark next to it. In addition to completing chores, your child is rewarded with points that they can save, spend, or share by donating to charities. This gives them the chance to make choices for themselves. They’re responsible and as the parent you can work with them to make good choices and validate (or censor) their decisions. No, you’re not a boss, but you are the boss of your family and it’s important to know what choices your kids are making and why.

The truth of the matter is, a simple process like this one is teaching your children skills they may lack. You have chores that need to get done. Your children have skills that need to be learned. Why not try Myjobchart.com today?

However, as a parent, you probably do want things to be as fair as possible for your kids. You’d hate to have your children feel they’re getting the short end of the stick. You want them to feel like home is a safe and welcoming place to be.

Now on to the difficult topics. No child really wants to do chores. They only do chores to earn their allowance (or avoid getting in trouble). Even knowing there will always be chores, your child will complain at times. And the last thing you want to hear from your child is: those chores aren’t fair. So here are some ideas to make sure chores stay fair and your children don’t have that excuse to stand on.

Don’t ask them to do anything personal. A friend of mine grew up with the following chores on her chore chart: clean master bathroom, vacuum office, wash and fold all the laundry. In other words, this friend was expected to clean up after her parents. The parents reasoned that they worked all day so the children could surely take care of these additional chores. My friend always resented cleaning up after the “adults”.

Reward them for their efforts. If it’s on the chore chart, then make sure your children are rewarded for it in some way. If you have chores on the chore chart that don’t help the child in some way, reconsider it. Having your children do chores for “free” (unless it’s cleaning their room or doing something similarly personal) is not fair.

Switch things up. If you have more than one child, you’ve got to switch the chores around. Otherwise, you’re going to hear phrases like, “I always have to wash the toilets. It’s not fair.” And that’s true. Unless your children share all the chores, someone will always get stuck with a more difficult lot.

Chip in when things are exceptionally different. After a big event (like Thanksgiving dinner), you need to take kitchen clean-up off the chore chart. That’s simply not fair to the child whose turn it is to keep the kitchen clean. The same idea holds for mowing the lawn after being on vacation for two weeks or doing chores while you have guests in town. Chores should be adjusted according to the circumstances in your house. And chip in when you need to.

If only the world were fair, you wouldn’t even have to create a chore chart. Your children would simply do what needed to be done. But until your children are grown, fairness has to be according to their terms. If you want your home to run smoothly, you need to keep your chore chart as fair as possible.

I woke up before I learned whether or not I admitted the hungry children to pass. But the dream got me thinking. Then, on a television show later in the day, I learned that 1 in 4 children in America don’t know where their next meal is going to come from.

As a parent, I’m grateful for the ability to provide for my children. I’m grateful my children have never gone to bed hungry or cold. I hope I can be a safe resource for them no matter how old they get. But I also hope my children learn to care for themselves and their own families. I don’t want my grandchildren to ever experience hunger. And I think, if I teach them the right lessons now, my children will be able to live comfortably with their own families.

Remember, I’m just a parent like you, but here are the lessons I believe parents should teach their children:

To work. This should be a given…that we teach our children how to work. But more and more I see teenagers who were never expected to clean their bedrooms or make a meal. You can bet they’ve never found their name on a chore chart.

Now, in most cases, the parents of these kids are able to provide their kids with every needed comfort. But what if they couldn’t? And do they plan on supporting their children forever? Teaching a child how to work, giving them a list of chores to do, is important for helping them learn how to succeed.

To be grateful. Doesn’t work (and for your children, chores) seem to go a lot easier when you are a grateful individual. Rather than lament about the things we don’t have, teach your children to be grateful, to take care of their possessions, and to contribute to your family.

Feeling grateful instead of having feelings of entitlement will help your children to be more responsible with money, buy things they can afford, and be happy whether they are driving around in a used car or new car. Help your children learn gratitude by reinforcing how fortunate they are and frequently expressing gratitude for the things you have.

To be charitable. The bottom line is…children are going to bed hungry at night. As a society, we have an obligation to help when we can. Especially because you never know when you or your children may need the charity of someone else.

With MyJobChart.com, children can choose charities to donate to. Each of the charities we have listed is there because we believed in their cause. The more we do for others, the more that comes back to ourselves.

The holidays are coming and it’s an easy time to ignore chores or to dismiss your children from completing them. But these three lessons need to be reinforced as often as possible. Plus, the holidays are a great time to help your children with gratitude and reinforce the value of work.

My children are going to make their own decisions about where they end up in life. But what I can do for them is prepare them for the future. Give them the comforts of life now and make sure they have all the skills they need to take care of their own future.

The other day we overheard a conversation between a mother and daughter. The daughter asked her mom for a new toy. When the mom said no, the daughter started making a fuss. Expected, right? Most kids make a fuss. But it was the mother’s reaction that surprised us. She smacked her daughter on the hand and said, “Be grateful for what you’ve got.”

Now, we may not be the experts, but we hardly think telling a child to be grateful – at a moment they are feeling disappointed – is the best way to handle the situation.

Here are some ideas we’ve come up with for teaching children to be more grateful:

1) Make them work for what they want. We can all accept the idea that if we’re given everything, we’ll never learn to appreciate it. Doing chores and taking part in family responsibilities goes a long way in helping children realize that not everything in life comes easily. And if you have your children earn their own money, toys, or other rewards through helping with chores, they’ll learn to appreciate both the chance to the work and the things they buy.

2) Show them how lucky they are. If you’ve ever gone to a homeless shelter, hospital, or government-sponsored after school program, then you’ve seen people who are in some pretty tough circumstances. Now, unless you’re totally heartless, you wanted to help. Why not have your children round up some old toys or clothes and then go with you to donate them? The gratitude of the receivers should help your children feel more grateful for their own circumstances.

3) Encourage/insist they donate. If you’ve been using myjobchart.com, then you know children can donate some of their earnings to worthy causes (like Operation Smile). You could set up charity as a requirement and then encourage your child to research what charity they might like to donate to. Or, give them the option of donating their time at special events or service projects.

4) Reinforce the feeling once they experience it. Let’s say your child is saving their allowance to buy a basketball. But then, on their birthday, grandma brings a basketball as a present. As soon as your child realizes he no longer has to use his chore money to buy a basketball, talk to him about it. Say things like, “Isn’t that great that you can have a basketball and still keep your own money?”

5) Tell them how grateful you are. Even if you have assigned your children chores, thank them frequently for getting the chores done. Mention your appreciation when a neighbor or friend does something nice for you. If you’re a person of faith, let your children see you pray and express gratitude. Children learn by example.

Gratitude is not a trait you can force on someone. And unlike learning how to cook or clean or become financially responsible, gratitude isn’t something you can just learn one day. As a parent, it is your responsibility to encourage your children to learn positive traits. We think the five listed above will help. In what other ways can you help your children develop gratitude? Feel free to comment below.

So how do you find the middle ground between letting them make their own choices and helping them retain self-control?

“Tricks” to Try…

Sometimes parents have to be tricky about the way they handle things. You don’t want to get into power-struggles or arguments with your kids. That doesn’t mean you have to give in to what they want. Simply avoid the situation altogether. Here’s how:

-Encourage the sorting of candy. Think back to when you were out trick or treating. You loaded up your bag and then hurried home to sort the good candy from the not-so-good candy. If you encourage this behavior in your child, it stops them from immediately digging into that huge lot of sugar.

-Load them up on their favorite dinner. Somehow, you’ve got to combat the sugar your kids will be eating. Why not prepare their favorite meal on Halloween night – before they head out for empty calories? Hopefully they’ll load up on good food and eat only a minimal amount of junk.

-Ask them to share. With an entire bag of candy, your child is not likely to turn you down if you ask for a sample. Ask as often as you think about it and slowly you’ll help diminish that pile. Whether you eat what you take or not is up to you.

Talk About It…

-Suggest your child make it last. You’ve been teaching your children responsibility with chores and money. Why not share the same techniques with treats. Encourage your child to eat only a few pieces each day. That way they have something sweet every day for several weeks instead of just a few days.

-Control the distribution. You’re not a bad parent if you confiscate the candy. If you have smaller kids, this is not the time to just give them what they want. Sure, they earned the candy. And you don’t have to be a candy warden. Just tell your kids they have to ask if they want a piece. Give it to them when they want it, but chances are they’re going to forget its there.

Is candy something to argue about? Even one day a year? Absolutely. If you’ve worked hard to help your child develop good habits, you don’t want those broken just because it’s a holiday. And too much sugar can have some serious affects on your child – even if they only eat too much on occasion.

Whatever you do, find a way to make the Halloween holiday an enjoyable one for sugar-hungry children and yourself.