The words “summer” and “responsibilities” don’t really go well together, do they? At least not where kids and teens are concerned, are we right?!
However, one of our most popular blogs was about how to help students with chore charts. It seems simple, but it can become more complicated as our children get older.
Keep reading if you’d like some help boosting your child’s initiative; teach them to take ownership of responsibilities at home this summer by learning how to gamify them — leading to doing more of what they enjoy!
Should We Gamify Our Child’s Responsibilities?
True story: A few middle and high school students recently asked their parents to make chores more like a game. While this sounds good, it can create a rhythm we want to avoid pursuing: putting the ownership of chores back on a parent’s shoulders rather than a child’s.
Children need to own their responsibilities in the home because research shows that it empowers them to take ownership of their duties outside the house.
However, we aren’t saying to ignore these students’ requests either. Learning how to make chores (or any non-preferred task) more fun is a skill that adults often do without realizing it. Let’s supercharge our kids and teach them to make something they don’t enjoy more manageable and fun. Here’s how.
Teaching Our Kids How to Balance Priorities
- First, what’s your child’s currency? Does he or she know what it is?
Just as any experienced teacher would, find out what your child’s currency is — or better yet — have your child look at what his or her currency is. It doesn’t matter if you have a 5-year-old or a 15-year-old; all children have something that’s worth a huge investment of their time (e.g. their “currency”).
When kids are young, this is sometimes hard to figure out. What if they don’t like ice cream or if a new toy isn’t a motivator? But as children grow, they tend to reveal their currency whether they they recognize it or not. You can empower your child to pay attention to what motivates him.
Understanding What Motivates Them
Is it easier for your daughter to do daily chores while listening to a podcast she enjoys?
Does he prefer to sleep in and tackle summer reading in the afternoon?
Would it help him to know he can play a video game after he’s finished with a task?
Does she want to hang out with her friends to talk about skincare and makeup right after she cleans the bathroom?
Helping your child understand what the motivation is will help him or her get to the task faster in many cases.
- Second, sit down with your child and ask them to write their own weekly list of tasks that need to be completed.
It’s too easy for adults to look ahead to the week and decide for our children what we think they should do. But this doesn’t empower them or give them ownership of their time.
Instead, having them write a list of what needs accomplishing helps them see that not everything is fun and not everything is hard. They also can practice prioritization if they make their own list.
It’s a skill they’re going to need as adults, so why not ask them to start practicing it now?
As they cross something off their list, they can choose something they enjoy to combine tasks. Here is an example.
One child who loves taking photos on a device is allowed to snap a photo of a completed chore, and then the child has to email or text that photo to a parent before they can cross an item off their list. Essentially, they’re more inclined to be held accountable to their list because they get to do something they enjoy (taking phtoos) and they have a third party (a parent) who will hold them accountable.
Accountability and Friendship
Responsibilities are hard, even as adults. So, we can’t expect our kids and teens to get it right on the first (or twenty-first) time they try. But having a buddy system for inspiration always helps.
Some students at Learnwell actually trade lists through an app on their phone. They share a list with a friend each week, so the friend knows what to ask as the week rolls along. This can be used to break down large goals into small ones, and having a friend along for the ride always makes a non-preferred task better.
- Third, have them attach points to their list.
Once they make the list and you’ve reviewed it together, have them attach a point value to each item. For example, if one of their accomplishments is “band practice,” they might attach 5 points to it because it’s related to something they already prioritize and enjoy doing.
But if it’s taking out the trash every day, they can attach 10 or 15 points to it if they do it every single day. That way, they actually earn additional points for tasks they don’t really want to do.
- Finally, have them write out a points gaming list.
How many points do they need to achieve to “win” something they’re naturally motivated by (that’s why we started with helping them learn what their currency is)?
An example may be that they get to hang out at the mall this weekend if they have earned 100 points by Friday at 5 p.m. You can encourage them to include parameters such as, “Band practice only counts toward 20 points total,” or “You must include at least five tasks that are chore-related and five tasks that are academic-related in your week.”
Once they’re accustomed to taking ownership of responsibilities, your child has practiced important adult skills, such as
- Habit-forming
- Combining preferred and non-preferred tasks
- Prioritization
- Time management
- Organization
- Accountability
Learning to organize time and balance what they want to do with what they need to do are skills your child will carry into adulthood. They’re also skills our kids and teens can use throughout their school careers to set goals and work towrd achieving them over time — reaching their highest potential and accomplishing responsibilities along the way.