Changing contributions

Our weekly contributions system has not been working well for Dan. He is often out of the house from 6 in the morning until 7:30 in the evening, Monday through Thursday, and I leave dinner out for him for when he gets home. This means that he typically puts away any leftovers and washes the pots and serving dishes, while I am putting the children to bed. He felt overburdened with additional jobs on those days, so we started thinking about how else we could structure it. I invited Toby into the conversation as well. Ultimately everyone agreed that Dan could have an unchanging contribution of cleaning up dinner (after everyone else has put their own dishes in the dishwasher), taking out the compost, and taking out garbage and recycling on Sundays. And on the three days that he is home, he will do additional stuff as needed.

In the course of this discussion, I asked the children which jobs they like to do and don't like to do. Toby likes emptying the dishwasher and taking out the compost. Hazel likes doing laundry. It got me thinking that letting them do the things they like to do, instead of rotating, might work better for our family. The problem then is that they don't learn to do the other things. I am going to spend some time thinking about this - maybe moving towards a monthly rotation, or doing a job you like all the time, and another job on a rotating basis? This changes the whole structure I created a few weeks ago - but onward and upward! Ideas welcome.

Today's money activity: Toby accepted a birthday party invitation, so I asked him if he would like me to take him shopping for a gift. Our arrangement is that I contribute $10 and he adds in any difference for the gift he wants to buy (and when he turns 7 and his allowance goes up, he is on his own). He chose the store, he said he wanted to look in the toy section, and we browsed for a little while. He chose a $12 pool toy that looked pretty fun (I had been little worried because he has a history of choosing things that he would like rather then the recipient, and choosing things meant for a much younger child). He also picked for himself a DVD on sale for $5, and his favorite toothpaste. He counted out his cash and made the purchase on his own. Also, when we went out to lunch, he bought himself a pretzel, and cookies for himself and his sister. I think he's doing great, gathering little bits of experience here and there.

I looked back over my Timeline for Training lists, and we have made a little progress in some areas, and regressed a little in some other areas. That's another chunk of thinking for me to do this week - and make some plans.