My son recently turned 5 years old and it was time to teach him the fine art of earning his keep. Kidding. Yet, it was time to start teaching him practical life skills. Otherwise called chores, but if you want to be fancy about it, you can call it “daily responsibilities.”
Chores are great for teaching independence, self-help, and cause-and-effect. Experts say the best time to start a responsibility reward system is at age 5, though we have been loosely doing so for a couple of years.
Now that he has come of the appropriate age, we decided to formalize it with daily responsibilies and reward my son with 5 cents for every chore or objective he completed. However, instead of a monetary system, you could give your child a preferred object or activity at the end of each day, like 15 minutes on a LeapPad 3, or the ability to pick from a toy bin at the end of the week. (Just shop clearance sections at toy stores, or at consignment shops and dollar stores).
Once you decided on the reward system, the next step is to figure out what chores to assign. I Googled ideas and even scoured Pinterest for do-it-yourself options, but the easiest solution for us—and the most practical—was to purchase the Melissa and Doug Magnetic Responsibility Chart.
What I like about it the most is that the magnetic tiles are not just actions like making a bed or brushing teeth. You can also pick “Saying Please and Thank You” or “Sharing.” Each tile also has an image of the action, in addition to the words, making it easy for kids of multiple ages that may not yet be able to read. It also works for children with special needs, as the pictures help tell the story of what they are supposed to do.
There are about 25 actions from which to pick, and plenty of smiley faces to put next to each one for all seven days of the week.
You can mix and match, or only have the social skills or just the practical life skills. For children with special needs, you can also organize activities so a child knows what order in which to go about the day.
The Melissa and Doug Magnetic Responsibility Chart costs about $15 on sites like Amazon.
