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| B1 & B2 working together |
Think about it. A healthy, functional family works together. They are a team. The kids do chores and help out around the house. The parents are involved in the kids lives but there is still room for them to breath.
Now, I know this does not always happen. Frankly, in our home it rarely happens. It is an issue that we have had to face many times and it is mostly because we are a blended family. It only takes one person to rock the boat if you know what I mean. One child decide they are not going to do their part and next thing you know, nobody wants to do anything.
As our family has matured we have tried many different ways to keep the team work alive. It is a struggle with teens that want to do their own thing. We are looking for inspiration with the teens. Their main motivation is electronics and money, neither of which happen to adequately available for them.
When the girls were younger and even with the boys, a chore chart
worked wonderfully. Listing the chores and then putting stars by the ones completed on the day they were done. Then at the end of the week, add the stars up to see what incentives were earned. Which, the incentives do not have to be costly. You can make an incentive chest and fill it with pinata filler toys
rather inexpensively. (We avoid rewarding with food 98% of the time.)We have thought about purchasing giftcards from our local Kroger that way we earn the fuel points from purchasing the cards and end up saving money on gas (which we REALLY need to do with the Expedition).
The other thing we have done is tickets
. Each chore earns a ticket and then there are things the kids can do that cost tickets. (i.e. 3 tickets = 30 minutes TV, 10 tickets = trip to the playground, 30 tickets = movie theater, etc)When the family is on the same page the results are wonderful! There are days that all the kids are eager to help out Mom and Dad, and those days are great.
How do you get your family to work together?
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