The No-Nagging Chore System

With four children under ten years old, I am sooooo sick of spending my day telling, reminding, and nagging them to do their chores!

So, I created the No-Nag Chore System.

I broke the day into 3 parts - morning, noon, and evening. Then I made a board, about 4"x15". I painted it and put the child's name on it. I installed four hooks and labeled them "Morning," "Noon," "Night," and "Done." I made one board for each child.

Because most of my kids are not readers yet, I took pictures of each child doing each chore I wanted done in a day. Then I used the photographs to make hanging tags - one for each chore. 

Each chore tag also specifies how many tickets  they earn by doing that chore.

I hung the tags on the hooks in their respective order. After a child does a chore, they move the tag to the "Done" hook. At the end of the day, we review the tags and I pay them the tickets they have earned.


Rules: 

If they do not complete all of their normal chores, they don't earn any tickets.

Each normal chore is worth 1 ticket.

Each ticket can be redeemed for either $.20, 5 minutes of screen time, or 1 special event credit.

Each child has different color tickets so as to completely avoid any arguments over "She stole my ticket" or "I lost my tickets and he found them." Nobody is allowed to trade or redeem any ticket that is not their color.

Special Events: They can save up their tickets and earn things like:
25 tickets = Game of bowling
100 tickets = sleepover
150 tickets = date with Mommy or Daddy
150 tickets = camp-out in the backyard
200 tickets = trip to waterside park

You get the idea.

Each day a child has 15 chores. The younger the child, the more I broke down the tasks. The preschooler gets a tag for getting dressed and another one for putting his pi's in the hamper.

I made a fourth board labeled "Extra."

If they want more money, screen time, or tickets for a special event they can select a chore from the "Extra" board. 

Two keys rules:
First, their normal chores must be completed for that part of the day before they can earn extra tickets. Doing their math work is required daily and earns them 1 ticket. However, if after doing their normally assigned work they can earn 3 extra tickets by doing extra math.

Second, the "extras" are first come, first served. I don't need each child to take out the trash in one day. Once a child has done his chores, he is free to select as many or few extra chores as he wants. There is incentive in getting their daily chores done in a timely fashion so as to beat the others to the extra board so they can pick the chores they prefer to complete.