Chore Strategies: To pay or not to pay?

Paying kids to do their chores can be a great motivator... except when it's not.  At one point I was paying my kids a small amount (like a dime a day) every day for doing their chores.  If they didn't do their chores, they didn't get paid.  Most of the kids started out very excited to get paid, and chores were done very well for about a week or two.  Then some of the kids lost their enthusiasm, and started slacking off.  I made a big show out of paying the kids who did their chores in front of the kids who didn't do their chores.  And to some degree it did motivate the kids to try harder... for a while.  Then something happened that I could never have forseen: my child had a birthday.  Okay, I could have forsean that.  But what I didn't expect was that the money their Grandpa gave them for their birthday would totally demotivate them to earn any money through doing chores.  Every night at chore time I'd hear, "I'm not going to do my chores. I don't really need the money."  Time to rethink my strategy!

So now we do things a little differently around here.  Daily chores are an expectation.  If you are a part of our family, you will take part in daily chores (often this means that even friends who come over will get assigned a job to do as well). No one is exempt from doing them and there is no material reward.

That meant I had to find a new way to pay my kids. I still wanted my kids to learn the concept of working for money (I think we can all agree that this is a universally useful life skill), so I decided to separate chores into two types: regular chores done for free and extra chores (usually on Saturdays) done for money.  I also pay my kids to read, which is their primary way of earning money, more about that here.

I know this isn't a revolutionary concept.  Notice I didn't put a trademark sign next to this idea.  But it was new to me, and it may be new to you.

Here's how it plays out at my house.  Every Staturday I put out a list of chores with a price attached to them.  Clean the bathroom- $1.00.   Mop the kitchen- $0.50.  Or whatever it is that I want done that weekend.  Then the kids who are interested in earning extra money have a means to do it, and the kids who aren't interested in money can just stick with doing their regular chores as part of helping out the family. 

Kate