December 10, 2010 4:30 p.m.

We don’t call them “chores”, here.  We call them “responsibilities”.  “Chores” conjures up ideas of drudgery.  “Responsibilities” identifies them for what we are really trying to teach.  Since this is, in theory, a less busy time of the year, it was a good time to update my expectations on paper.

Here are the results:

So now we are in our third week of following the chart.  The first week went pretty well.  Then we tweaked the chart to balance out the responsibilities and the days of the week better.  Chips complained that he didn’t get a chance to clean the toilets, as his best friend Samuel claimed he did.  I did not want to disappoint Chips in this, so I happily added that responsibility to the chart. 

We are now in our third week.  I would say that about 1/2 to 2/3 of the items require reminding – some of them a couple times in the same day, but by and large the children are doing what they are expected.  I have “trained” each of them in each task, and I am not complaining if things do not get done perfectly.  There is a bit of moaning and groaning from one of them (not going to name names) but they understand that it is the right thing to do, and that many of their friends have similar jobs to do. 

So I guess from now on I can sit in my recliner and read all the books that I haven’t had time to read before, right???