to ask my kids to help around the house

[misdee]

because apparently i am a ghorrinly mother according to them?

am sick to death of telling them to do the dishwasher/tidy their rooms/put towns away, and them repsonding with 'aaaaaaaaaargh i dont want to'

i am going on strike tomorrow. no meals cooked, no uniforms ironed, no packed lunched made etc etc. they can do everything for the day and then see how little i actually ask of them.

i have 5 misdee

and they all HAVE to contribute to the household....no choice

ages 16 down to 2....even the 2 year old can 'gopher'...thats what we call the smaller jobs...take this upstairs,put this on your bed,collect up alll the balls etc

7 year old today has learnt to wash up as he had learnt to dry few weeks back. i also showed him how i like the sink...scrubbed,rinsed and polished!! he loved doing that!!

12 year old ds has always had washing kitchen fllor job,clear out the car,sweep up leaves or any other job. todays was to put away garden furniture and to tidy garage

dd 2 is 14....her job after doing her rabbits is to hoover the car. sometimes she will wash and polish it,not today tho. also she is very good at clearing out cupboards,so i allocate one or two a week

dd1 is 16...so can iron and clean the bathroom adequateley (to my standards) she will also babysit the youngest through the week and will hoover and dust

they all get an allowance (teens) with option of more jobs for more money...and the boys get pocket money straight to their bank accounts,plus a pound each for the shop after all chores!

works well and they enjoy moving up to being trusted with bigger jobs. ds has wanted to wash dishes for ages!!

dds are 9 & 10. They do their own room & change beds (with some help) and clear after themselves at mealtimes.

They both help with washing/dishwasher which they can earn money for. They pick things from the garden (reluctantly) and help put shopping away.

Both do lots of running up & down the stairs as I can't do that atm

I have 2 DD's, age almost 11 and almost 3. Both help around the house, just little things like taking things upstairs, putting washing in basket, taking rubbish out, little jobs that save me a bit of time, they know that we all do household chores (including their Daddy!), I am NOT the housemaid/cleaner and the fairies do not do all the jobs!

yabu, ds1 (4.5) puts his clothes away, tidies toys up and takes plates out to the kitchen. Ds2 is only 22 months but he's starting to copy ds1 & will (occasionally) put toys away!

Putting TOWNS away is perhaps a little too much......however...general tidiness is quite right,hang your towels up,take your plates to the kitchen,do the bloody washing up(and drying and putting away).....it's not hard labour...you are doing them a favour in teaching them how the world works!!!!and how you work....

dragonfly68....good on you.....i bet they're lovely kids.

My ma dis the exact same as dragonfly!
Op - I think you need an incentive scheme!

they have incentives. sometimes cold hard cash, sometimes time on the pc/wii/ds, sometimes just good old playing out once the jobs are done.

but yup OP is full of typos, but was very stressed :)

I think incentives are good but I don't think kids should be give something everytime they do something around the house. We were 5 kids too and we had to help around the house. washing up,bringing coal in,making fire,hoovering,dusting,etc.....
Dragonfly - you have them all in check! :)

There shouldn't be incentives for basic jobs - that's just part of living in a community. Everybody has jobs to do otherwise we don;'t have a nice happy family life.
Incentives for extras, not for everyday things.