My nine-year old princess sat me down for a talk several weeks ago to talk about something very important. At first I thought she wanted to plan another mommy/daughter date but that wasn’t it at all. My princess had a paper with a list of chores she already do but this time she had a dollar amount next to each chore. I sat quietly and listened as she presented her case. She made some very good points and I could not help but see her point.
The only thing that didn’t seem right was the amount she was expecting to get paid for doing each chore. So, I had to negotiate with her.
Sweeping the kitchen and bathrooms $ 7.15
Clear the dining room after each meal $ 7.15
Prepare lunches the night before $ 7.15
Make her bed $ 7.15
Take trash out to the dumpster (with supervision)$ 7.15
The original total she came up with was a little to high in my opinion, so talked it over until we reached an amount that I think makes sense. We also came up with an agreement about her jobs. The first being is that she would only get paid if she does her jobs without being reminded. I added that little loophole because I had a feeling that she was going to need reminders and I was going to have to teach her an extra lesson about the real world. My daughter is sweet and smart but she can be very forgetful and I am trying to help her take her responsibilities much more seriously than she has in the past.
I was very surprise when she agreed to my loophole and I am even more surprise that she only needed to be reminded the first two weeks. She did lose some money for those days but I am proud of how she responded to being told that she had not earned the amount we had agreed on. By the way, we agreed on her getting 10 dollars a week for all her chores. I know that amount might sound low but I will give her an opportunity to ask for a pay raise after 6 months or so.
So my little man, aka my seven-year old prince has decided that he too wants to earn some money for chores around our home. His list is much shorter due to the fact that his older sister took most of the kid chores but he was still able to come up with a few that will earn him money. He hasn’t signed his payment agreement yet but I have a feeling that he will when he sees his sister spending her money when we go shopping.
I will post an update on when my little prince signs his payment agreement and how things are going with both him and his sister are doing with their chores.
Ballu Lee
