Anything that you can do to make doing chores around the house fun for children will encourage them to help out. Better still, if you combine completing chores with earning rewards, you add even more incentive for them to contribute. The website ChoreMonster gives you a tool for combining chores with incentives to make the task of doing chores engaging and rewarding.
This month we’ll show you how to use Choremonster.com to manage the chores at your house.
To get started visit Choremonster.com and sign up for a free account. You’ll need to type your name, e-mail address, birthday and indicate what your children call you. Create a user name and password too. Unclick the Receive newsletter checkbox if you don’t want to receive the newsletter. Click Let’s Go to sign up.
You’ll next need to add the children’s details – note that this site doesn’t require children to provide an e-mail address which is a nice feature. Type one child’s first name, add their birthdate, select their gender and type a user name (or accept the one provided) and password. You can add an image if desired and, when you are done, click Add Child to add the child.
Now set the chores for this child. Select one from the list or type one in the Create a New Chore box. Set the reward points for completing the chore and the day, time and frequency for the chore. Add a note in the note box, if desired.
You can then, if you wish, search for or upload an image to illustrate the chore. If you want the chore automatically approved – so you don’t have to mark it as completed, click the Automatically Approve this Chore checkbox. Once you have entered everything, click the Add Chore button.
Now add a reward that the child receives when they have reached a certain number of points. Rewards can be purchased items or things like a trip to the park. Type the name of the reward and select the points required to get that reward. You can choose a reward from Amazon, upload a photo or search for an image on Google to illustrate the reward. Click Add Reward when you are done.
Back at the Home screen you can click to add other children, add more chores and add more rewards. You can also view the chores list for any of the children by clicking the Chore List beside each child’s entry. When you are done, click the large X at the top of the page to log out.
Your children will log in by visiting Choremonster.com and clicking the Kids LogIn link. They should type their user name and password and they can then view a list of their chores and when they are due. They can mark chores as completed which you can later approve if you haven’t set them to be automatically approved. Children can also review their progress towards their rewards.
If you chose to approve completion of chores you will need to log in frequently to approve them. At that time you can also review each child’s chores list and edit the chores or add new ones. If you have added more than one child, every chore you create can be added for other children automatically as you create it, which will speed up adding chores that all the children must complete.
