So I took her idea and made it work for own family, which meant expanding it into daily, weekly and "as needed" chores that were appropriate for different age levels. I took her idea of "other" ways to earn different colored puffys as Abby calls them (we adopted her terminology). Different chores earn different colored puffys which can be collected to cash in for different rewards according to the color. Does that make sense? If not click on the image to get a up-close look at our Puffy Job Chart and it might make more sense.
Once I made up the chart I put it into a sheet protector, cut off the holes on the side and stick some magnets on the back so I could put it on our fridge.
Each child gets a jar (mason) to collect their puffys and then one big "bank" jar, that I bought at our local Wal*mart to keep all of those puffys to be earned. I bought two 100 count packages of multicolored pom poms but am finding I need another package to have enough. I also found that I had to keep all jars on top of the fridge so as not to have little colored balls all over my house and to keep children from fighting over who's was who's.
I also needed help setting up a weekday routine but found so many ideas out there that I was almost overwhelmed with them all so... I took a little inspiration from about 20 different blogs and came up with an idea of my own. A visual reminder of what our routine is, also posted on my fridge the same way as the puffy job chart. It has helped to keep my kids on task and the pictures are a nice help for my kindergartner who is just learning to read.
The last thing that I needed was a way to discipline, without taking away rewards earned. I've tried that...doesn't work and ends up backfiring on you. After lots of thought and searching again I came up with my own idea.
My kids LOVE baseball and understand the concept of 3 strikes = your out. So I applied that concept to a new discipline plan. I will ask nicely once, ask again more firmly and finely they get a "strike", in the form of a special magnet on a very simple chart. Once they get 3 strikes in one day, they get grounded to the house for one day, with no TV, video games or computer of any kind. With this I've also added the option on their rewards chart of cashing in 20 puffys to earn a free pass, which let's them become un-grounded for one day, but they have to do A LOT of chores to earn enough for that. At the end of each day the slate is wiped clean and we start anew.
My Fridge |
Good luck with your own journey of trying to figure out what works best for your family and I hope that this gives you some inspiration.