A strange thing has happened at our house: our girls have started begging to help out with chores around the house! How did we do it, you ask? Did we beg them, brainwash them, bribe them, drug them? No, maybe, kind of and depends on how you look at it!
Dessert has become the bane of my existence as a parent. I can “Just say no!” to TV, iPad, makeup, unhealthy snacks and so much more, but somehow dessert has become the norm, a little sweet treat after eating a good lunch or dinner (though not after both in one day!) But the problem has become the NEED they have for dessert. The crying, fussing, and general hysteria that ensues with the simple words “No dessert today” is outrageous. No dessert has become the ultimate punishment, and it works. But I don’t like to focus on punishments, I like to focus on rewards.
And that’s where being helpful comes in. I decided from now on they will earn dessert by being helpful around the house. For every chore they help us with, they earn a dessert. They can earn dessert by doing things that help me and hubby like helping empty the dishwasher, helping put groceries away, helping clean up Doodle’s toys and helping wash the cars. Things that they have always been responsible for, though, do not earn dessert. This includes things like cleaning their playroom and helping put their laundry away. However, fussing about doing their usual tasks can get an earned dessert taken away.
I made a chart showing some of the tasks they can do to earn dessert as well as different desserts they enjoy:
I then “laminated” the chart with contact paper
and hung in our family message center I set up on the end of our pantry cabinet.
I had each of the girls write their name and color 7 clothespins. The clothespins will be used to show how many desserts they’ve earned. Each time they do a helpful task we move a clothespin to the “dessert” section. Each time they have dessert, a clothespin is moved back up to the “chores” section. If they have no clothespins in the dessert section, they don’t get dessert.
We just made the chart, but have been earning dessert for just over a week now and it’s working! We’ve been searching for daily tasks to each dessert but I look forward to them being able to “stock up” desserts as tasks need to be completed instead of coming up with one at the last minute as we’ve been doing. I still plan to have “No dessert days” but will have to come up with a new ultimate punishment!
