Pocket money for housework

Scroll down and you will see a blog entry about not spoiling your children. We learnt that treating your little darlings like rock stars is not good. Then I realized my own kids do very little around the house. Generally the house looks messy and we are all to stubborn to do much, also cleaning the kitchen or watching a  re run of Dr Who, no contest.

I have attempted to get my darlings to clean up but nothing has worked, I've tried the football manager approach, no luck, I've tried simply asking them, they run away, my daughter has admitted  "anything"to get out of a bit of washing up. She uses emotional blackmail, slimy arguments in fact anything to make me give up and for her to get on the computer and listening to "Slipknot".

So I decided to take my own advice and get my kids to do some work, I used simple bribery. My son had to tidy his room before I took him to a friends house and my daughter was told to clean the bathroom to get all her pocket money. After much complaining my daughter did a great job and was happy when I praised her for a job well done.

My son filled my dirty washing basket for me but he was a quick worker, he got his reward.

I felt great, in control with two tidier rooms and more incentive to clean myself, the kitchen got scrubbed while I raved to cheesy old tunes on local radio, know we had worked as a team made me really happy, that day the hole burden wasn't on muggins mummy.

As well as a rest getting the kids to do some housework is a valuable life lesson, look at this blog about an intelligent woman who was never taught to do the basics in life and now doesn't know how to pass these skills on to her kids. There is no way I'm being smug, I am not the perfect housewife either, but I would like a cleaner house and some old school parenting may well help us all. Now I'm off, cleaning to do.

So it's time to make a stand, stop running around after capable kids who can help clean the mess they make. Please tell me how you get on. 

http://perche-si.blogspot.co.uk/2007/09/how-much-housework-should-children-do.html