Bowl o' Chores!

Alright fellow parents, I know I'm not the only mama out there that dreaded chore-time!  I could not stand the whining, crying, fit-throwing, and absolute awfulness that came with asking my kiddos to clean up and/or do any chores.  Our oldest isn't too bad but our youngest is terrible, just asking him to pick up 1 toy turned into an hour of whining and crying...it was pretty bad.  So a little over a month ago, right before we moved, my hubby stumbled across an article written by a mom that had her kiddos do a few chores before they were allowed to have any screen time (awesome idea right?!), and another little article presented us with this idea and I am SO excited to share this with you!  This system was super easy to put together and has almost completely eliminated the whining and terribleness afore mentioned, it's freaking awesome.

So, what we did was a bit of research into age-appropriate chores, made a list of chores we already had them doing (and chores we know they like doing), then I wrote the chores on index cards - the black writing are chores for our oldest, the blue for our youngest, and I threw in a few pink cards (as you can see) that just say "I love you!" just to give them a little smile and remind them that I love them.  When it's time to do chores I have them pick one at a time and that's it!  The best part is that they usually want to do 2 or 3 more!  Once they pick one I set it aside so they can do different chores and once they're all done I throw them back in and we start all over again, easy peasy!

Here's our youngest choosing a chore, just look at that little grin!  They actually look forward to doing chores and ask to do them!

My oldest LOVES getting the mail so I was sure to throw that one in there.

Our youngest does not love doing many chores but he absolutely loves helping me unload the dishwasher so I tossed that one in the bowl of course! I love having happy helpers!  Every now and then they say, "Oh man, I don't like that one" (cleaning under the bed, picking up their room), but because they chose the chore they get it done and that's all the whining there is.  It's really a great system and I just had to share it, hopefully I can rescue at least 1 fellow parent!