Accountable Kids

At the Spillers' house, we've started using Accountable Kids!
Accountable Kids is an excellent positive parenting program for teaching responsibility and accountability to children.  It is very adaptable to kids of different ages and personalities.

Up till now, we used chore charts and our children got money for every chore they did at the end of the week.  They were responsible for keeping records of what they did each day and we checked the charts at the end of each day.  This system worked well for the International students who were older, but since Hannah and Naomi were not able to read or keep records themselves, they were left out of a lot of the benefits of chore charts.  Also, as time went on, the kids--and us adults--got lazy about checking to see if everything was done as recorded.  We needed a system that worked for all age groups and that held us parents accountable more often for checking on the kids' progress.  Accountable Kids was the solution.  Now instead of a chore chart, we use a board with pegs and chore reminder cards.  The day is divided into 3 time periods--morning, daytime, and evening.  Basically, kids do a set of chores and then get a ticket for doing them.  They use that ticket to "pay" for leisure time so they can play.  Work comes first, then play, and the kids manage their own schedules by flipping cards over as they do each chore.  The ticket idea is a good one because the kids are required to ask permission to do their leisure activities and they have to use their tickets for that time.  For more information, check out their website and of course, view the slideshow I made.

Oh, one more thing.  We ordered 5 kits and each one came with the small board with 5 pegs and plenty of cards.  I needed to make a "bank" area for all the cards, so I purchased more pegs from Rockler.  I also didn't want that many holes in my cabinetry next to my refrigerator, so I custom made another layer of oak plywood and used a shelf jig kit to make the holes for the shaker pegs.   I didn't get around to varnishing it yet, as you can tell in the photos, but it still looks pretty nice, I think.