chore management – FaithFueled™ Mom

Parenting is getting real, hard!

This school year has been a huge transition for the Bolton’ family. My husband and I are transitioning from parents of littles to parents of biggins and our roles as parents are expounding. We are no longer caring for our children’s safety and teaching them the laws of the land. We now have to deal with another set of issues such as other children, social cues, independence, and responsibility.

It’s hard raising children in this world that are grateful and aren’t entitled. I feel that children are handed a lot of things that we had to earn. Tomorrow my in between diva will be nine and my twelve years old will be thirteen in April. We are at a point especially with my twelve-year-old that we are asking to go beyond our at home playdates. We want to go places, do things and spend money.

Creating entitle diva’s

This is becoming a serious problem in my house, and I have complained about it before but like anything without consistency and follow through my best efforts have been without success. That just means I need a readjustment right? Well, I am starting to realize that as I affectionately call my daughters’ ill diva’s which I intend it to mean (Divine Inspired Virtuous and Anointed) sometimes they are actually what pop culture would refer to high maintenance lil women. I have no one to blame but myself. I have been a stay at home mom for going on 13 years. I have catered to the two of my girls every whim leaving them with little to no responsibilities. Although, I have taught them gratitude they often have to be reminded and can be entitled.

Since I was the one who created this poor work ethic and these little girls who “believing they are inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment” without any labor. My aha moment as I was folding my nine-year-olds (who if I remember my childhood correctly was a skill I had mastered by this age). It dawned on me, these girls need more responsibilities and need to earn their keep. It was either a brilliant idea or my way of lessening my load, but I needed a better chore management system, maybe an app?

We need a solution

In a few weeks, I will have both a nine-year-old and thirteen-year-old. As we approach the lil diva’s Birthday’s, I am starting to see the need to give my girls more responsibility. At this age, the focus is no longer taking as much care of these independent souls and more teaching them skills to use in life.

At least once a week my husband Ed and I admit we have no clue to what we are doing and this parenting thing has reached a climax. It’s gotten real hard now, the solutions to the problems are more thought provoking and creativity is a necessary. I am not an expert parent, I know there are those who claim to be out there, and I am very grateful the next generation has a few experts raising them because I know I fail daily.

Benefits of Showing Kid’s Financial Responsibility

Last year, we explored a new app to make chores seem more enjoyable and easily monitored by me without nagging. Well, Homey App (Check out my Original review of Homey App) has revamped and given us parents, even more, option.

I know it’s been a year so let me give you a basic breakdown of what Homey App used to do and what they do now?|

Parents Capabilities:

Create a household name and password.
Invite your family members to join and set up an account with family members names, pictures/avatars, and passwords.
Once that is all setup then you (the parent) can start assigning chores and value.
You can take a picture of their messy room and create as detailed of a description of what you expect from them to complete the task.

How it works now?

I love the new upgrades that Homey App has made it now has:

An allowance management functions teaching children the value of labor and future life skills.
Create savings goals for your child whether they be a short term want like going skating or a long term goal an electronic or game. It helps them see their effort and their money accumulating.
You can transfer money! Say what? I don’t even have to got to the ATM to remember allowance. I am an online shopper and use my debit card often. I have bank accounts set up for the girls (not Mimi yet which is a reminder poor third child) and the difference between paying them in cash and going directly to their bank. They collect interest at the bank, and they will be more likely to use it wisely if it’s not in their hands.

Chore Management Upgrades

Some of the things I suggested before are now available, YAY!

I like the reward/deduction feature.
Skip chores
undo completed tasks in case they weren’t done up to standards
can add or take away points and coins
add photos of the child’s rewards that they are seeking to earn
edit templates that Homey App has available for you and make them your customer chore pack
You can also change the family dynamics too. However, they fit your household for example Grandparents raising children or other family members that aren’t the child’s biological parents..

The free version of Homey App is still available, but this new premium feature will have a subscription fee which covers the bank transfer fees and compliance to enhance your capabilities. You should give this a try for yourself. We have been using it for a few weeks, and it has made the enthusiasm and reminder for my nine-year-old of her compensation for effort. She gets points my oldest receives coins and now knows what she needs to do to go to special places with friends. Now if I am consistent this just may be what the Bolton’s need.

Right now, if you register for Homey Premium, you get a complimentary trial of all the features. This is a great trial to check out all the features and customize it to work for your family. Creating an environment that not only encourages good work ethic but gives my lil diva’s some financial responsibility and management skills I think that’s a good thing. If you’re interested go visit my peeps at Homey App and find out more information.

What do you think?

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Cleaning is a Family Game

HomeyApp

My Full Disclosure Policy

BoltonDivas

The chore struggle

I have three little diva’s. When I refer to them as “lil diva’s” people always think that they are temperamental entitled little girls. When I am referring to my diva’s I think of them as divine, inspired, virtuous, anointed little girls that are being molded to be a powerful witness’ for God. But they can also be very temperamental especially when it comes to cleaning chores around the house. The attitude that I get when I ask if their room is clean or the living room is vacuumed could be considered “diva”.

Techniques used in the past

I have tried several different strategies to make chores enjoyable in my house and less of a fight. We believe in grace based parenting but there is so much grace you can show for a poorly executed chore time and time again. I have charged a variety of strategies, the chore chart. It started off well the first week and by week 3 and 4 there was little to know pleasure from receiving a gold star for a job well done. Then we tried the chore sticks. It was like a lottery choice for the lil divas. A variety of chores written on a Popsicle stick placed in a jar. They would choose there chore for the day and once it was completed would received a check mark. Once they accrued enough check marks they earned there allowance or reward. I thought the spontaneity of chores and not being responsible for the same chore week after week would add some more fun to chores. That lasted for a moment. My husband and I are trying very hard not to add to the entitled generation that is becoming an epidemic. Showing grace and creating standards of excellence all at the same time. This parenting stuff really does get harder as they get older. Its so much easier raising my toddler than it is my tween and eight year old. But, apparently part of bringing them home from the hospital was that I was responsible to create positive contributions to society.

I recently got to try out a very cool app, called Homey App, that has created a new and refreshing approach of assigning chores and completing them. This app allows my husband I to be on the same page with chore assignment. It also allows him to help manage our children’s completion of chores while he is away at work. This is very important because honestly I sometimes get tired of always being the bad guy. Being virtual has other perks too. When I was away a few weeks ago, my husband was a little perplexed on how I wanted something done. I could keep track of my oldest daughters diligence all from my phone. After a few attempts she was able to receive her point. That’s how this work on a point system.

Homey App

Why the Homey App works for us

This cool new way of chore management, the Homey app. It makes chores competitive which my family is highly competitive. My husband is a basketball coach. I am a former all star cheerleader and softball player. And my oldest is into field hockey and lacrosse. So we are very motivated by friendly competition. There are multiple reasons that the Homey app is going to work for our family.

First, there are scores and our competitive nature that is a motivator in itself.

Second, we can all be on the same page. You take a picture of the chore to be done and then the person who is assigned will then take a picture once completed. This is great for my husband and I because my definition of clean and his is quite different. So, the girls send me the picture of the completed chore to receive the “reward.”My girls are at an age where they get allowance. The allowance is to teach them money management. Stickers and treats are also not as strong motivators as dollars and cents.

Another, great thing is that I can schedule chores in advance. I am a planner addict and nothing gives me more satisfaction than prepping and preparing for things to come. I like that I can schedule the chores a week in advance (or more) and then not have to worry about the daily nag of “Is this done yet?” No picture, no allowance and when it comes to chores there is no grace. If they were working in the real work there would be no pay and no grace in termination so somethings we have to be strict about it. Since I am the household manager the way my household is operated is similar to an employer.

HomeyApp

It has been fun working with this app so far. I actually think this is something that can last for our family. My eight year old recently received a tablet for her eight birthday. She will be added to the Homey app as a family member too.

How it works?

Which is how it works: You (the parent) create a household name and password. Then you invite your family members to join. They will receive a link, qr code or you can do it old school and give them the Household name and password to search for. They then get setup with a profile. Basic stuff name, picture (we used Avatars for everyone) and password. Once that is all set up then you (the parent) can start assigning chores and value. You can do that two ways: use a preexisting picture or description or create your own. You can take a picture of their messy room and create as detailed of a description of what you expect from them to complete the chore.

A little tip: if the chore is multi-faceted for instance my daughters room. I wanted the room and her closet organized. That I did two separate task because only one picture can be taken to complete the task.

Once they feel it is done they take a picture. Then they receive the point. I did have a slight problem with this aspect. I wish that the chore could be approved before they received the point. Just because they think they did a good job doesn’t necessarily mean it is a good job. I overcame this a couple weeks ago by deleting the task and reassigning it. Homey app is still working on this and I made a suggestion for this change. Also, I like that you can reassign the task once its completed. So, you don’t have to start over you just reassign it for a future date. All in all it has been interesting taking our chore management virtually I think for my kids its more relateable. For me, the more I work with it the more I find its saves on management and time. It has also included my husband and he typically checks on it with his train commute home. What do you think about managing your household chores with an app? Is your family ready to take your chore chart virtual?

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