“Daddy, can you please add more chores for me to do?”
How did I get my daughter to beg me for more chores? I’m
glad you asked, and the answer is simpler that you might think. It is an app
called ChoreMonster. Are you skeptical that a simple app could revolutionize
chore time? I understand, and I’m still a little skeptical myself, but after
two days of my 7 year old begging me for more chores, I’m beginning to wonder
if I’ve happened on a gold mine.
I had heard claims that this app could motivate children to
do their chores, but I figured that they were either lying or on serious mood
and perception altering substances. I consider myself to be a fairly well
educated parent with a whole slew of parenting tricks to motivate my children,
but I have yet to convince any of them to do more than one chore without the
requisite whining, hysterical choking sobs, threats that they will no longer
love me, saying that I am a terrible parent and that I clearly do not love
them, and flat out refusal. When you add her two sisters to the equation, each
with equal determination to thwart my parenting efforts, I begin to understand
why some parents have their children taken away from them.
We have been using “punch cards” to encourage them to do
chores. We print off cards with twelve circles that we punch out with a hole
punch when they do a chore. When a card is full they get $3. This has helped to
reluctantly motivate them to do chores, but I’ve never had them ask for another
job. The punch card just barely mollifies them that there is at least a little
value in what they are doing.
I installed ChoreMonster while at work, figuring it couldn’t
hurt to at least try it out, created a few simple chores- fold your laundry,
wipe the kitchen table and sweep the floor, pick up toys in a room, and empty the
dishwasher. I assigned each chore a point value of 25 points, then created one
reward- $10 for 1000 points. I wanted to keep the math simple for me and to
mimic the reward from the punch cards. The app has its own internal motivation-
you unlock cute little monsters for doing jobs, but that part of the app was
buggy and didn’t seem to be working.
I installed the app on an old phone that my daughter uses to
read library books on and showed it to her. She has a tablet and is quite used
to navigating apps, so I did not need to do much explaining. I did explain that
when she had finished a task she could mark it complete, but I would have to
approve it, meaning it would need to be done to my high standards.
Imagine my surprise when she dove into the pile of kid
laundry, sorted it, and had hers folded and put away within 5 minutes. She
excitedly marked the chore done on the app, then promptly walked into the
kitchen and began wiping the table with wash cloth and scrubbing sponge until
it sparkled. She has NEVER done so well wiping the table before- usually a
quick brushing of crumbs off and leaving the sticky residue from breakfast.
Then she proceeded to sweep the ENTIRE kitchen floor from corner to corner.
I was already impressed, but she kept going. She opened the
dish washer and was disappointed that the dishes were not clean- no we could
not run a half full dish washer just so she could empty it. There were no toys
to pick up, so she asked me to add another job to her app!
I added a chore to do the cat litter and no sooner had I
added it then she was off and cleaning. Luckily then it was time for bed, so I
had a good excuse to cut her off before she could burn both of us out. Last
night she checked her app again and excitedly ran to do her jobs, without me
asking or prompting at all!
I haven’t had time to set the app up on the 5 year old’s
tablet, and I think our 2 year old is just too young to get it, but I am
hopeful that they will be just as excited when the time comes.
Does anyone else have an amazing motivating tip to share?
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