Since both Heather and Paige quickly made comments wondering about the "four things" and I have neglected to write about them previously. I thought I would explain them.
Our four things is what we came up with for our family economy or system. We came up with it a year or more ago. I had been reading articles from Richard and Linda Eyre in the newspaper about their family economy and how they structured stuff to get their kids to help around the house and teach them responsibility and what not. We had also gone to this frugal living workshop. One of the classes we want to was about a system a couple created and was just starting to market called work stars or rock stars or something.
We tried both of these systems out but were not consistent with them and they got complicated and just didn't work for us. So we came up with our own thing. We aren't perfect at it. It gives us a baseline and something to work towards.
The four things are the four things/areas that we think should get done everyday before screen time or playing with friends or extras that the kids might want to do to earn money. If you haven't done your four things you don't have other privileges.
The four things are something physically active, something spiritual, something to better yourself/increase your knowledge and something to help around the house.
We have varying standards for the various ages of children we have and Beth isn't old enough yet. We try to be pretty flexible with requirements but not too easy. They are things that should take a little while to get done but not the whole day and be too burdensome.
For example 15-20 minutes is the minimum for active and spiritual for everyone over like eight. Spiritual can be reading from the standard works, church magazines or even some of the more doctrinal church books like Jesus the Christ, no more than once a week can you watch Mormon messages or church videos to make it count.
School or getting homework done usually counts for the improving your self one for the kids. The little ones we will read with or too to help them get that for them.
Helping around the house looks different for everyone also, especially with the little kids. It's mostly helping them clean up the messes they make.
We keep track of points and each thing is a point, with four possible in a day and 28 in a week for each person and usually have a few different goals we are working toward. Like last week anyone who got 25 points or more got to go out for shakes. When Star Wars came out last year the girls and I earned a certain number of points combined and then we got to go to the movie. The kids earned like 500 point or something over the course of a few weeks or months so they could get Minecraft on the computer.
So there you have it. I hope it makes sense. It is rather basic but it helps us try to focus a little better and gives us a standard.
This is our chart.
So there you have it. The "four things"
Our four things is what we came up with for our family economy or system. We came up with it a year or more ago. I had been reading articles from Richard and Linda Eyre in the newspaper about their family economy and how they structured stuff to get their kids to help around the house and teach them responsibility and what not. We had also gone to this frugal living workshop. One of the classes we want to was about a system a couple created and was just starting to market called work stars or rock stars or something.
We tried both of these systems out but were not consistent with them and they got complicated and just didn't work for us. So we came up with our own thing. We aren't perfect at it. It gives us a baseline and something to work towards.
The four things are the four things/areas that we think should get done everyday before screen time or playing with friends or extras that the kids might want to do to earn money. If you haven't done your four things you don't have other privileges.
The four things are something physically active, something spiritual, something to better yourself/increase your knowledge and something to help around the house.
We have varying standards for the various ages of children we have and Beth isn't old enough yet. We try to be pretty flexible with requirements but not too easy. They are things that should take a little while to get done but not the whole day and be too burdensome.
For example 15-20 minutes is the minimum for active and spiritual for everyone over like eight. Spiritual can be reading from the standard works, church magazines or even some of the more doctrinal church books like Jesus the Christ, no more than once a week can you watch Mormon messages or church videos to make it count.
School or getting homework done usually counts for the improving your self one for the kids. The little ones we will read with or too to help them get that for them.
Helping around the house looks different for everyone also, especially with the little kids. It's mostly helping them clean up the messes they make.
We keep track of points and each thing is a point, with four possible in a day and 28 in a week for each person and usually have a few different goals we are working toward. Like last week anyone who got 25 points or more got to go out for shakes. When Star Wars came out last year the girls and I earned a certain number of points combined and then we got to go to the movie. The kids earned like 500 point or something over the course of a few weeks or months so they could get Minecraft on the computer.
So there you have it. I hope it makes sense. It is rather basic but it helps us try to focus a little better and gives us a standard.
This is our chart.
So there you have it. The "four things"
Comments
I wonder if it's too late to start it with a 17-year old who just wishes I would leave him alone (forever) while keeping the sandwiches coming.