How do you get your children to clean-up ?

[Jezmom]

My sister is having a problem with her two children(7and 12yrs old). They have housework to do each day while she is at work(her husband is home but asleep,he works night shift). She has a chart for them to check off, and at the end of the week they get and allowance if they have helped out Regardless of what privileges she takes away (swimming, TV, spending the night with friends and Aunts:( ) they will not do the housework. Any suggestions? Is she going about it the wrong way? Please help, I would like for my neices to spend the night with me SOMETIME this summer :)

[Amy]

hmmm...Thats a tough one. Have they always been responsible for chores or was this something that just came up when she started work? I ask this because it is very hard to get a sense of responsibility for chores if you were given them later in life. I never had to do a darn thing in my house and when I was a teenager, my Mom asked to empty the dishwasher. Well, she might as well asked me to clean the toilet. LOL I was horrified. That is probably why I hate to clean the house even to this day. I was never conditioned properly to accept this as normal. LOL I have started my kids at an early age, but I also have to follow through on checking them after they are done. That way they can't have their fun until I give it the ok.

The one thing I can think of is to ask the kids which chores they prefer to do. Ask them to divy up the list and what they think would be fair compensation for doing them. Maybe if thy do it for a week, than she can take them out to dinner of their choice. If they do it for a month, than amusement park tickets etc. Whatever works for them.

[Jezmom]

She had them to make a list of what they prefer to do and it worked for about a week. They have had helped all along. Now I would not be surprised if it were my childrenLOL. I would bribe her to do my housework when we were kids. She was always the clean and tidy one, I would rather go outside and do lawn work than to stay in (when we were kids lol). Thanks for the reply Amy!