Everyday Family Chore System- Schoolhouse Molly Crew Review

The Molly Crew is a division of The Schoolhouse Review Crew and focuses on non-homeschool curriculum reviews. As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, we occasionally have the opportunity to review for the Molly Crew too.
As homeschooling families, we have so much more than just the academic education of our children to worry about. Among other things, homemaking and home management are often on the educational agenda. The products the Molly Crew reviewed for Everyday Homemaking are designed to help families accomplish this.

Vicki Bentley, a homeschooling mother of 8 and foster parent to over 50 has written a book to help others teach their children household management skills. Everyday Family Chore System which is published by Everyday Homemaking  is an 88 page book on the basics of setting up a family chore system. It also includes a bit of child training help as well.  The book is divided into three sections. The first two sections teach the whys and hows of family management including several pages on what can be reasonably expected of a child at various ages. These two sections also outline how to set up a family chore system for your family and stress the importance of teaching the child to do the job properly and having well understood expectations including instructions that the child can easily refer to for all chores. The third section is a reproducible series of chore cards and how to do it cards that are, in theory, fill in the the cleanser and go.

We have done various forms of chores over the years and I have read many books on how to train up self-sufficient children, hard workers, etc. Everyday Family Chore System didn’t really present anything new to me, but it did condense a lot of what I have read over the years into a few quick-read pages. Unlike many chore system type books, this one doesn’t say, “do your chart this way because it is the  only way that works.” Instead, it speaks of the importance of clear expectations, a way for the child to know if all the steps are completed, and gives suggestions as to ways different families have adapted the chore system to fit their family.

A few years ago, I had bought a peg board to hang chores from. It was used for a while and then fell by the wayside. I adapted the chore chart suggestions using the board I already had. I also made up the how-to-do it cards and attached them to the board so that they were easy to find in one place. Here is our board:

Each child has a column of jobs. The majority are daily jobs and include things like pick up room, pick up toys, etc. They each have a couple of family jobs. Then at the bottom there are weekly jobs to do. The weekly jobs need to be done once a week. The tags on the right side are the instructions for each job. Green circles are placed over the chore when the child finishes the chore. I later go through and check their work. If greens are placed up before the job meets the requirements for the job, I will remove it and tell them what needs fixing. If a job is neglected for the day, when I get to the board at night, I place a red beneath the chore. Extra chores are required when jobs go undone. For completing all jobs, a green goes under the name. Then I can see at the end of the week if children are getting their jobs done consistently, what jobs need more practice or supervision, and what jobs are being neglected. If a child is neglecting the same jobs, we will not rotate until that job is mastered.

We have had mixed results with the chore chart. Tiger loves it. He gets up, gets going and finishes it all so he can move on to other things. The girls are not doing as well though. There are days they get their chores done and there are other days they shirk their work. We are still working on the positive and negative consequences. We have mixed feelings about allowance and rewards for work that should just be done. On the other hand, intrinsic motivation does not develop in a vacuum and sometimes needs some extrinsic prodding to begin to develop.

Overall, I liked the reminders of the things I know to be true regarding teaching children to work. I also liked the suggestions for how to do the chores, chores I hadn’t thought of assigning, and other ways to present the chores visually for the children to learn to do them on their own. I did have to make my own chore cards though because the ones in the book had different steps than the ones I wanted my children to take. Seeing the author’s cards helped me to structure mine though. Everyday Family Chore System is available for $19.99 for a spiral bound book or $17.99 for the ebook. While I liked Everyday Family Chore System, I am not sure that I would have paid $17.99 for the ebook, it seems a little expensive, but if it will help get your family working together, then it is worth it.

Be sure to check out what the other Molly Crew members thought of Everyday Homemaking’s Everyday Family Chore System as well as Everyday Cooking by clicking on the button below.
Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine.