The Boys Chore Chart!

The busyness of farm and winery life plus busy kids schedules found us searching for another way to divide up the household workload and provide some responsibility. We created a monthly chore chart.

by Chad Steiner

We ALL have very busy schedules. I’m certain we all wish we had help at times. Jeana and I still find ourselves overwhelmed by laundry piling up (kudos to her for tackling most of it), dishes, meals and more. But many of these things are daily activities for the rest of our life. It then occurred to me – heck, wouldn’t it be great to 1. have help, and 2. teach our children that some activities are simply going to always need to be done. This would also then help spread out the workload. Meals and laundry are probably the biggest example – we all “eat” the meal. Therefore is it ok to have “everyone” help clean it up? Each person in the house creates their own dirty laundry, therefore, doesn’t it make sense to have each individual participate in doing their own laundry? This logic is what lead to us creating The Boys Chore Chart. I’ve inserted it below. If you’d like an excel copy of it – just email chad@chelanvalleyfarms.com.

The weakest link in the chore sheet is mom and dad. If we don’t follow up on Sunday’s to review the boys chores, then it doesn’t work. This has taken discipline on our part. And sometimes, we don’t get to it, or we’re out of town. We’ve decided Sunday’s are our day to stay home an not make any commitments. Which makes it a good day for review. The chore sheet doesn’t include many of the things we ask the boys to help with on The Farm. And, farm chores are seasonal. They still help with things like watering, weeding, checking irrigation in the grapes, harvesting flowers, etc..

Here’s how it works…

Quick Note – we don’t dwell on the weekly reviews. We have a quick dialogue, then keep going. We also minimize everyone weighing in on everyones review turn. Some weeks are faster than others…

It’s broken into 3 components that are weighted at 33% per group. We verbally discuss these with the boys and ask them how they did. I then give it a 0-11 score. 10 isn’t possible because perfection isn’t possible. 11 is possible if they do extra or help someone else out. I basically give each group a 0-10 score, then add them up for a total out of 30. 15 out of 30 is $5 for the week. The team chores are a team score. They are really learning to help each other on this one. Here’s more detail below.

1. Team chores. These are chores we think everyone needs to pitch in on.
2. Individual activities. These may be chores like keeping rooms clean, folding clothes, morning routine, and bedtime routine.
3. Paid chores. These activities are where there is an opportunity to earn money. This includes chores like feeding chickens, cleaning windows, and cleaning counters and cabinets. To give a variety to things, we’ve decided to switch these chores every month.

The goal of the sheet is to 1. Divide up mostly household responsibilities (feeding the animals is included) on a routine basis. We feel like these daily activities are all part of being a family team. We all create laundry, we all use dishes. And most likely we’ll all have to fold laundry and do dishes for the rest of our life. Might as well get used to it now.

Hope everyone had a great 4th and stay cool with this heat coming.