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Parent PSA – The Chore Box

Family, faves January 17, 2013 Comments: 6 Rudimentary materials? Yes. But my floor is clear!

If you struggle like me on a daily – nay, an hourly basis to train your children to pick up after themselves, then





and make one of these.

I take absolutely no credit for this idea and, frankly, it’s Pinterest wildfire so I don’t even know where it originated (found it here).  But I can vouch for its effectiveness.  It took me a whopping ten minutes to put the box together and, once I did, the procedure is as follows:

1.  Parent steps on Matchbox car/barbie shoe/Play-Doh doo-hickey.
2.  Parent sighs, places offending object in The Chore Box
3.  Child realized s/he can’t find offending object and seeks out parent
4.  Parent directs child to The Chore Box
5.  Child reads New Rules, sulks, gives up and picks a chore
6.  Child completes chore, offending object gets returned, normalcy is restored.

A note about chores, they obviously need to be age-appropriate (I found good suggestions here and here).  Mine are four and seven, so I created one pocket per child and filled each with chore slips.

Now, could the child refuse to pick a chore?  Sure.  And if so, fine!  Either you’re encouraging good habits or you’re purging unwanted toys.  No reminders, no discussions.  Just a shrug and a pleasant, “the choice is yours.”

I’m a little giddy over this.

While I’d love it if this process immediately corrected my kids’ tendency to leave everything everywhere (hey, a mom can dream), I know this will be a gradual change.  What I love about The Chore Box is that, wherever we are in the learning process, there’s no downside for me.  Brilliant.

What do you think?  Would The Chore Box work in your family?



Tagged: family, humor, ideas, life, motherhood, parenting, review, simplifying, writing

6 thoughts on “Parent PSA – The Chore Box”


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