www.chorewars.com

ya gotta check this out!

My thing is the poker chip system. I feel like it is a blend of both of the ideas that you present. My kids earn poker chips for things that I recognize are not easy for them...this expands beyond the realm of housekeeping too, it is for behavioral stuff too. For example, my youngest is disorganized and he has a theme of losing his hats and gloves and backpack between school and home. So he, right now, earns poker chips for bringing each of those items home from school. They earn chips for regular household chores (cleaning their room, picking up toys, helping out in the kitchen, etc) but also for things like accepting disappointments gracefully. I pay them $1 for every ten poker chips they hand in on Saturday mornings. As they become accomplished at some things, we decrease or eliminate those rewards and replace them with new ones. They both understand that their own rewards will be different than the rewards the other child gets because they are different children with different challenges. It works really well for us, so far.

The problem with paying kids is that then the chores become optional if they don't want the money. It often works better to teach chores as a necessary part of life (future roommates and spouses will be grateful), much the way we teach personal hygiene practices like toothbrushing and bathing.
One way that works with some kids is to teach early chores to little kids, and then make the bigger chores a sign of being grown-up, as in "When you're eight, you'll be big enough to use the vacumn."
It takes a lot of training to develop responsibility, and usually it only works if a parent works beside a child for the first thousand or so times that he does the chore.

Ugh. Chores. Nothing I ever did worked to make it fun/something they wanted to do. I tried it all - money, rationalization, etc. As they got older they did realize that Mom couldn't work and take care of a big house all by herself so they knew that one morning each weekend was house cleaning - period. We did have a house cleaner come in every two weeks and that helped. I made them cook too when they were teens - they hated that, it interfered with TV or telephone time. But you have to persevere. Now they are grateful that they knew how to cook, change oil in cars, clean, etc. when they moved out on their own.

really.. check out Chore Wars at www.chorewars.com

it allows the pokerchip style if ya like.. pay if ya like.. or privaliges (like getting to choose desert.. or the game we play).. and it's fun.. it make chores like playing pirates or knights..

Dave - I think you'll find this issue is like politics - most people have their very strong feelings for one side or the other and and are not easily swayed by argument. I think yours was a really thoughtful and well presented point of view - we must vote the same way ;-)

My biggest caution is related to your plan to pick a dollar value for each and every item. Not only is it difficult to do (eg. what's "brushing your teeth" worth and how does it compare with "feeding the dog") but it's also more likely to encourage cherry-picking at best and a mercenary attitude at worst.

My second caution is that any plan you come up with needs to be simple to implement or it will die a quick death, despite initial enthusiasm. You’ll get busy, you’ll forget, it’ll get boring….a whole host of system killers.

The big picture is that we're trying to teach kids they have responsibilities - this is for their own personal growth, not just to keep the house clean. We also want them to have money so they can learn about financial responsibility and about making choices.

EI's idea of using poker chips is really interesting - it adds a layer between the the money and the work so it's a less obvious connection. I also like the idea that each child is taught that "fair" doesn't mean "the same" - that each child has different needs. But I do think the system's still in danger of turning into "how many poker chips do I get", especially when the kids get a bit older.

Here’s a suggestion….we created an online system called Active Allowance which enables you to link allowances to responsibilities, but helps you teach the big picture. It’s similar to approaches suggested by experts such as Neale Godfrey and Richard & Linda Eyre. It also has the advantage of being online so it’s easy to do once you’ve set it up.

Please drop by for a visit.

Check out clipplanner.com this is an all-around
help around the house to keep the chores straight.

Chore Wars looks cool & Clip Allowance looks interesting; I'm going to spend a little more time there to see if / how to incorporate them into what I'm doing, which is...

...paying them for chores. I'm not implementing a real clean, true capitalist approach, as if they decide they don't want to do a particular chore, then (based on my subjective view of the need of that particular chore) I assert that they have to do it as part of this household. The first one or two times, I might still pay them, and also warn them that if they do this again then they will have to do the chore anyway & not get paid. One of the life lessons here is that sometimes they don't get to completely chose the nature of their circumstances, and they have to figure out how to move through that and create their circumstances in the way that they want them. I'm in the process of deciding how much to pay them for each chore, so it's still a bit of a work in progress.

In the cases where I don't pay them for the chore they chose not to do, I visibly show them me paying myself (i.e. - I put the money into my ":spare change" jar), so that they can see that "their" money is lost and was received by someone else. My youngest has been the quickest to pick up on this, and when one sibling backs out of a chore, she'll position herself to get the "extra" money for herself.

What are we doing w/their money? Splitting it into 4 categories:
- donation
- college fund
- investing
- spending

For the investing piece, I have set up a Sharebuilder account for each of them (http://www.sharebuilder.com/) and are teaching them about investing in the stock market. The first stock they have bought is Hasbro at $26/share (Hasbro makes most of the toys they play with, and I've gotten them very interested in investing in the stock market. Sharebuilder allows you to buy fractional shares of stock, so they can use much smaller amounts to own companies - which they just think is pretty cool.

WRT separate households: great opportunity for another life lesson --> different houses / people / groups / friends / society / etc., have different rules. When you are their, if you want to "successfully participate" in that organization, you may need to adjust your behavior accordingly, in order to be part of that group. More of a macro view on a micro issue, but you get the point.

Please post your progress, and share any tips! :)