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| Q: | Should we give our kids an allowance? | | A: | We recommend that households using the "I Did My Chores!" system do away with any allowance. Instead, place a monetary value on the tokens. This way, if the children choose to cash in their tokens for money, they will have earned their allowance and will have much more respect and appreciation for the value of a dollar. |
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| | Q: | My child is not really motivated to do her homework because she only receives one token for it. | | A: | Excellent comment. If you have a four-year-old, one token for homework is probably appropriate. If you have an eight-year-old that spends an hour or more on homework, then she certainly deserves to be rewarded more than one token for her efforts. My suggestion is to take a permanent marker and on the bottom of the "Do My Homework" card, draw 5 circles. Then everytime she hands in that card, she receives 5 tokens for it. (You can obviously draw as many circles as you deem appropriate.) |
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| | Q: | Do you have an "I DID IT!" system for teens? I have four children ages 11 to 17 years of age and I would love to have a system for them to utilize. | | A: | We have a system for teens in development called "I Did My Homework! The Hassle Free Homework System." It is scheduled for release in 2005. It is not a chore system, however, it is a system that helps teens complete their homework, projects, etc. The "I Did My Chores!" series has only been proven to work for ages 4 to 12. You could try it with your teens, but there are no guarantees. I would also recommend waiting until the version for 9 to 12 year olds comes out in 2004, because it will have really "hip" illustrations that will be more appealing to the teens and 'tweens. |
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| | Q: | What do I do if I want my child's chores done in a particular order? | | A: | Go get yourself a permanent marker and number the back of the cards. Have the child place the cards in numerical order before hanging them on the appropriate hook. |
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| | Q: | What if my child does his chore, but forgets to put it in the "I DID IT!" box? | | A: | I know this sounds harsh, but it is CRITICAL that you do NOT put it in the "I Did It!" box for him. Even if he made his bed (or whatever), the only thing on the parent's agenda is to move cards to the Extra Hook (and no tokens are received for cards on the Extra Hook). If you begin looking through every card, trying to determine if it was done or not, then YOU are utilizing the system, not your child. The whole point is to have the child manage himself. Stand firm and I assure you, once he realizes he does not receive tokens for cards not placed in the "I DID IT!" box, he will make that a priority. |
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| | Q: | I have two chore systems, one for each of my children. Sometimes their chore cards get mixed up and my son brushes his teeth two times in the morning and my daughter doesn't brush her teeth at all (because her brother has her chore card). | | A: | Go get yourself a permanent marker and put their initials on the back of the cards. That way, if there is any confusion, everyone will know whose is whose. |
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| | Q: | I am planning on using a "treasure chest" and filling it with items such as bandaids, toothbrushes, toothpaste, movie rental coupons, ice cream treat coupons, film for their cameras, etc. and letting them choose items from the chest in exchange for their tokens. | | A: | That's a wonderful idea. It works especially well when you see a "hot" item at the store you know your child wants but cannot afford at the moment. You can go ahead and make the purchase, then drop it in the "treasure chest." A word of caution, though: I always told my kids anything in the "treasure chest" was fair game and whom ever could pay for it first, could buy it! By the way, I LOVE offering Bandaids as a reward! That is so perfect! |
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| | Q: | What if my child doesn’t complete a chore by the designated time? Does that mean she doesn’t have to do it at all? | | A: | In our house, a little of both occurred. If she didn’t do her homework on time, she still had to complete it anyway and without receiving a token. If she forgot to make her bed, I simply closed her door and ignored it. |
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| | Q: | Will this work long term or will my child tire of it? | | A: | Consistency is the key. As long as you give out tokens every night and allow the child to purchase his reward when he’s able, then it should work indefinitely. If your child is losing interest, add a new reward or two to the list. |
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| | Q: | I was only going to have my child do one chore per hook since some of the "chores" were not actual chores (like put my shoes in my closet), but simply daily tasks. | | A: | We took a bit of creative license when we used the word "chore." For our purposes, a chore was anything a parent had to ask the child to do on a daily basis. Our goal was to remove as many incidental commands as possible from the daily routine. So when we assigned a "chore" such as "Put My Shoes In My Closet," the goal was to keep Mom or Dad from scrambling all over the house the following morning looking for Junior's shoes when the school bus was due to arrive at any moment. Don't think of these as "chores," so much as "stuff" you want your kids to do every single day. (For some reason our Marketing Department just would NOT let me name it "I DID MY STUFF!" Ha!) |
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| | Q: | I would like to adapt this system for a schoolroom where I may have to use it for more than one child. Is that possible? | | A: | It depends. If you have tasks that have to be done daily (like take the lunch count down to the cafeteria), but it is done by a different child everyday, then you might be able to use it so long as you don't write a particular name at the top of the board. Maybe put "Today's Star Student" at the top instead of a particular name, and then have some other way of identifying who's the star of the day. You would also have to make your own stickers with the 24 blank ones we provide. The pre-printed stickers all relate to chores completed in the home (brush my teeth, take my bath, etc.) You also need to keep in mind the hooks are labeled: Morning, Noon, After School, Nighttime, Extra. Bottomline: This is an "in home" product and was not ever really intended for classroom use, so if you do purchase it for that purpose, "adapting" would be the operative word! |
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