I work so hard so my kids can have awesome stuff and what do I get? Not one word of thanks. That’s ok though, I was the same way growing up. I didn’t notice how hard my parents worked so we could have the things that I completely took for granted.

But with working long hours comes a lot of time that I am not at home with my kids. While they’re in school for the majority of the day, I am not the one who picks them up, takes them home or feeds them dinner.  #momguilt

We have a wonderful babysitter who does that, the only issue is that as my kids get older they are more disrespectful. They complain about how they have to do their jobs each night (jobs include hanging up their coats, putting shoes away, emptying knapsack…). These jobs are nothing out of the ordinary, but they complain as if they wouldn’t have to do them if I were home with them. Oh contraire little ones! You’d still have these jobs even if your mommy was home with you!

So, to have a better understanding of what goes on at home without me and to ensure everyone’s jobs get done, we started using an app called Our Home.

Our Home App

While the set up took me some time, the real time feedback from our babysitter has been amazing.

The way I have it set up is that each chore (or what I would consider a normal expectation) is worth 1 point. Jobs are expected to be done and if they’re done nicely without reminders then each child get a point per job. Extra good behavior is rewarded as well. Those are worth 3 points. So if someone helps someone else or has excellent table manners they are rewarded. Bad behavior is also tracked and in our home gets -3 points, although I am considering raising this to -10 points.

some of our tasks

Also in the app are different prizes that my kids can earn. I made the prize point values high so that my kids are not rewarded very frequently for just doing their jobs. Their behavior will earn them prizes over time.

While I’m not an advocate of having everything in an app, this was the best solution for us. In the past we’ve had charts, but I would always forget to print out a new one in the beginning of the week and I had trouble keeping track of the old charts, so was never able to keep track of the points.

I liked this app because my kids do not need the app! A lot of the apps I researched required the kids to have an account in order to mark tasks complete. This app is used exclusively by me, my babysitter and my husband. Every so often I show the app to the kids so they can see their point totals, but other than that we can remain device free at night.

Updating points is not always done as soon as a task is completed, but can be done in batch. For example, when we’re early on the carpool line at school in the morning I will give points to my kids for that morning’s tasks.

So, this app doesn’t make my kids behave, but it does encourage better behavior in a positive way. How do you encourage good behavior in your home?

Until next time,
Shaindy