You Have to Check This Out!

I have come across something that I think everyone with children will love. There is an AMAZING site that has been developed to help get kids organized with their chores and work responsibilities in their homes and families. Best part--it's FREE. It's called MyJobChartcom.

Braden and I have discussed on numerous occasions how to effectively teach our girls to pitch in with chores and work. We want them to have daily responsibilities, but I find myself with other things that are top priority for me, so I'm not focusing on organizing their chores and getting them to do them. Often, they are so exhausted at night that it is better for everyone to put them to bed and then I'll clean up the toys. But I know that's not the best way to do it.

I love the way myjobchart.com is set up. All you need to do is register your family (each child gets their own user name and password) and then start assigning jobs. You can use their preset jobs, like make your bed or clear the table. Or you can enter custom ones if there are jobs that are specific to your family or aren't listed, like "dust the fake plants" or whatever. And you can assign the jobs for every day or specific days, morning or night, weekly, etc. Each job is also given a point value that you decide.

Once you have the jobs assigned, you can assign rewards that your kids can work to achieve. These can be simple like TV time or computer time, or special mommy/daddy time. OR you can choose specific rewards. Like right now, Keara is working towards going to a movie with Braden. So I could put that as one of her reward options. Or she really wants to some day go to Build-A-Bear. I could put that as one of her options too. Each reward "costs" a certain amount of points that can be achieved thru your kids doing their assigned jobs.

Now your kids can get to work. In the mornings, they can log onto their account and see what jobs they have in the morings (get dressed, make your bed, eat breakfast, pack your lunch, practice the piano, etc.) As they do them, they check them off. Depending on how you set it up, they may need to log in again after school and then again at night to make sure all their jobs are done. A really cool feature is that as each job is finished, you can choose to have an alert sent to you via email or even text. So daddy can be at work and get a text that Johnny finished his chores, so your kids are accountable for their work.

Once they've earned enough points, they can redeem them for their rewards. This also can teach your kids to set goals and save their points to get better rewards that cost more points.

Another really awesome feature is that if you go out of town, you can easily change your assigned jobs. Like maybe instead of "do your homework" you could change it to "write in your journal" or something else you want them to do. Or you could eliminate jobs that aren't pertinent while on vacation.

Anyway, that's a whole lotta jabber, but the point is, it is awesome. My cousin's family is an inspiration to us and they are the ones that told us about this. They love it! And it helps them keep their 6 kids organized. All of their kids use it, from the 11 year old (?) down to the 2 year old. All you gotta be able to do is point and click. Our girls aren't handy with a mouse, but this site is perfect for all kids who can use a computer.

I put a button/link on my sidebar that you can just click on to go to the site, or go to www.myjobchart.com. It's free to sign up and doesn't take much time to get everything organized for your kids. I hope someone out there finds this to be a wonderful tool for their family! Even if you don't use it but know someone who would love it, pass along a good thing.

And, no, I have no ulterior motives for promoting this site. I just think it rocks!