How to Make a Chore Chart With Incentives

Whether your child is a toddler or a teenager, you can ask her to help out around the house. Not only do daily chores help teach responsibility, they allow your child to feel like she's making a contribution. Create a chore chart with incentives to keep track of your child's progress, offer motivation and reward her for a job well done.

Things You'll Need

  • Pencil
  • Paper
  • Poster board
  • Ruler
  • Markers
  • Stickers
  • Rewards

Instructions

    • 1

      Make a list of age-appropriate chores for your child to complete on a piece of paper. Toddlers can pick up toys, gather dirty clothes, or dust. Preschoolers can help clean the table after a meal, make their bed, and match clean socks. School-aged kids can fold laundry, set the table, sweep, and vacuum. Be specific with each chore you list so there̵7;s no gray area. For instance, ̶0;Put toys in toy box, make bed and place dirty clothes in hamper̶1; is better than just ̶0;Clean room.̶1;

    • 2

      Look over the list of chores and assign each chore a point value. For example, taking the garbage out can be one star point, vacuuming can be two and raking the leaves in the yard can be five. Also create a list of rewards and assign each reward a point value. One point can equal five minutes of reading time with mom, three points for a temporary tattoo or another small prize from a bin of goodies you collected, five points can be a trip to the library and ten can be traded in for a small toy. You can choose to offer an allowance, if you want. Whatever the rewards, it should be meaningful to your child to make it worth the effort.

    • 3

      Lay your poster board on the table. Use a marker and a ruler to make several horizontal lines. Leave a 2-inch space at the top of the poster board, a 1-inch boarder on the two sides and a 6-inch section on the bottom.

    • 4

      Label the poster board at the top. A phrase like ̶0;Austin̵7;s Chore Chart̶1; or "Lily̵7;s Jobs̶1; will do the trick.

    • 5

      Write the list of chores, rewards and the point values for each in the bottom open section of the poster board.

    • 6

      Allow your child to decorate the sides of the poster board to personalize it. Hang the chore chart on the fridge or on her bedroom door.

    • 7

      Give your child a sticker for each point after each chore is complete.

    • 8

      Choose a ̶0;pay day̶1; and award your child the prize that she earned.

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