Kids' Chores

We have permanent dinnertime jobs and rotating housekeeping chores forthe 4 working kids.

Dinnertime jobs:

1 takes out trash, sweeps the kitchen, brings in firewood for the next day and brings the folded laundry upstairs. 1 washes the day's dishes and puts away food, and takes care of the kitty litter 1 scrubs the dinner pots and serving dishes, tidies the upstairs and feeds/waters the dog 1 wipes the counters, table and chairs, and tidies the downstairs.

Housekeeping chores:

These are weekly rotations. We have it divided so we can do a Monday "blessing hour" and have the house basically clean and tidy. If we are expecting visitors or the house is trashed, we do an additional blessing hour later in the week. In addition, they have daily house chores:1 sweeps and tidies up the great room and dining room1 wipes down the bathroom1 does a laundry rotation1 is mom's helper and on call to help with the babies and as "go-fer"(that child has lighter responsibilities in the weekly clean-up and also generally gets first choice if there are any extra treats goingthat week)

Plus they have various outdoor jobs as needed and we have several cords of firewood to stack and use during the fall and winter. They take turns taking the littlies outside though recently, my 9yo hasbeen doing it the most, since he is very good at it and enjoys it morethan the older kids do.

Plus each of the older kids cooks a meal or so during the week. In our house, I make a hearty breakfast, they are responsible to get their own lunches and often that of the littlies, and we eat an early dinner around 4 pm because we have several evening activities.

It doesn't really seem like "enough" -- not enough sheer hard physical work for the boys, I don't always inspect as I should, and I don't think any of them except the oldest have the know-how and judgement toreally run the house. They can all do the basics. I think they could develop a bit more handiness with mealtime and with childcare. All these systems came about from necessity when I was pregnant and in the hospital a lot with the youngest and the 6th was chronically ill with liver and neurological disease; now that everything is going better, I have less incentive to actually keep the system working since my natural preference is to tryto do it all myself ;-)