Here’s a quick update on the progress of Vanessa’s newly introduced chore chart.  For those who haven’t been following what I’ve been doing, read this first.  This is basically my idea of a child’s chore chart.  Vanessa is 2 years and 10 months in age and definitely ready to be doing some chores and her fair share of cleaning up in the house.

Objective of this exercise:

• Promote healthy, positive and helpful behaviour in and around the house
• Encourage usefulness and independence
• Develop and understanding that “everyone pitches in”
• Make cleaning and tidying up a routine and not a “chore”
• Introduce the concept of co-operation (I help you and you help me)
• Reinforce the positive behaviour with an allowance
• Begin teaching the economics of saving, spending and charity
• Eliminate the helper’s tasks of items that my child can do on her own

The allowance bit:

• Saving (30%)
• Spending (60%)
• Charity (10%)

I’ve now increased the savings and reduced the spendings quota so that she can save more.  What does a child her age need to buy?  Well, we’ll see how this progresses.  So far, it’s been one week into the chore chart (see picture below) and she’s made some progress.  It’s hard to keep her focused and I constantly have to remind her about this chart, but she loves to put the stickers on herself and as you can see, she’s already colored (or drawn on) this week’s chore chart.  I will need to make a few changes next week because we’re trying to get her to sleep independently, so that is a key “item” to have as well.  Other than that - it’s not too bad, you just have to constantly remind her and sometimes - “do it together” so she doesn’t feel like it’s a chore but rather a routine.