You are here: Home / family / The Everyday Family Chore System by Everyday Homemaking #MollyCrew

The Everyday Family Chore System by Everyday Homemaking #MollyCrew

September 6, 2012 by 1 Comment

Photobucket
Every family I know is always on the lookout for a great product to help get their crew organized and working together.  Family chores STINK, but they sure are easier when everyone pitches in.  We’ve been looking for a good system for a while now to help integrate my 2, 5, and 7 year olds into the household routines.  
                                  Photobucket
There is a spectacular product from Everyday Homemaking available called The Everyday Family Chore System.  It is available in printed format for $19.99 or in electronic format (a PDF file) for just $17.99 and is 88 pages of household management training.  Click to see a sample.
The first part of the book serves as a tool to help the parent reading it to see WHY it is important to train our children to help out around the house as members of the household and family.  It also mentions a few guidelines surrounding the process and helps you to imagine what kind of outcome you’re hoping to get out of this venture.
Next, there is a section on implementing a family plan on how each family member can serve the family.  There’s even a Life Skills checklist that loosely lists tasks and abilities and at which age one could reasonably expect a child of that age to complete the chore.  I love how the author, Vicki Bentley, says that we should work until we work ourselves out of a job as parents!  In other words, we should be so effective at teaching our children to assist in running the household that we can essentially let them run the show!  She does make it clear, however, that we’re not to sit back and expect the kids to serve us.  No, we need to serve them as well by training them to be resourceful and diligent at keeping a household up and running.
My husband has talked about this many times and we both agree that we really want ALL of our children, both boys and girl, to be able to do simple household tasks before leaving home.  Simple or not, being able to wash dishes, cook a few meals, clean floors, do the laundry, and tidying up after one’s self are all really important things to be able to accomplish.  I know that I had no idea how to do many basic things like that when I left home and neither did my husband!  Heck, he had never paid his own bills until we got married.  His parents did all of that for him and he still isn’t really into it.  I had to quickly grow up and learn how to do pretty much everything once I was married at age 18!  Goodness, I’m STILL learning!
Photobucket
She discusses daily, weekly, and monthly rotations of chores.  She also provides some suggestions for the actual setup of the family chore system.  Additionally, many sample routines are included in the book to give ideas on how to implement the system effectively.  The suggestions and ideas in this book go BEYOND just chores.  She also includes ideas on character development and lifestyle expectations as well.  I also appreciate that the author has included information on how the system worked with younger kids and then how it was changed as the kids got older.  Another great feature is the information on providing detailed instructions to the kids so that they know exactly HOW each task should be carried out.  That is very smart thinking and something that is worth the time to really write or type out so that children realize what the expectation is for them.

This book is a great resource for ANY family, not just a homeschooling family.  I believe it would work well with a family of one child or a family of 10 or more children!   It would be great for kids aged 2 and up and well into high school or adulthood, depending on how long the child is living at home!  Furthermore, the skills learned from this method of service and work ethics will transfer over into their adult lives and truly prepare them for independence.  Kids growing up using this system will surely be ahead of the game!  

We have had so many interruptions in the past several weeks that I have not been able to fully use this system yet on our family.  However, I read the book in its entirety a few weeks ago and have been really using many of the tips that she suggests.  I’ve also been really thinking about our family dynamic and have set up goals for our daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning and organizational needs and have been working on how to divide it between the children.  I have worked with them some with the ideas presented in the book about detailing exactly what is expected per job and have been drawing the kids near to me to help mentor them every time I do something.

My 7 year old and 5 year old have been helping me by gathering up their dirty laundry and dumping it in the washing machine for me when asked.  They have also been taking the clean laundry up and putting up their own laundry.  My 2 year old also does this.  Obviously, his skills are less and he just crams them in his drawers.  My 5 year old and 7 year old are neater and divide their clothing between drawers and hanging them neatly in the closet each time.
I’ve also shown my children how to properly clean the toilet, wipe down our countertops, and to clean mirrors and windows.  My 7 year old has really enjoyed learning these skills as she’s usually fast asleep when I hurry and complete these chores when everyone is asleep in the evenings!   She is surprisingly eager to learn how to do the things I generally can’t stand, so I will certainly continue to mentor and eventually hand it over!  My 5 year old is also interested in it and he is actually my go-to guy when it comes to vacuuming!  Lately, I have been showing them more specifically how I want things to be vacuumed.  I love how this book really lays it out to give the kids clear and specific expectations for the things they do to help!

I really have enjoyed reading this book and using the included chore cards and resource list.  I can’t wait to print out some more of the resources from the book to put together a more sturdy and reliable chore chart system.  She has great ideas for that and I’ll be using them for sure!
If you would like to see what other Molly Crew reviewers are saying about this system, click the banner below!
Photobucket

Filed Under: family, homeschool, kids, Molly, TOS
About Jenn

Jenn lives in Fort Worth, Texas with her husband and 4 children. The family eats Paleo about 95% of the time, and Jenn homeschools all of the kids. She is heavily involved with local bloggers and is slightly addicted to social media.

Comments

  1. Vicki says:
    September 6, 2012 at 6:19 pm

    Thank you for your thorough review! I appreciate your sharing how you were able to use the ideas in your own family.

    Reply

Speak Your Mind

*

*

CommentLuv badge

Sign up!