Winning the Chore War

I'm approaching the table with plates of piping hot spaghetti, salad, and bread. If only there were some placemats, I could put them down before my hands turn to molten lava. Table-setting has fallen to my daughter Caitlin this week, but surprise, she is nowhere to be seen, and neither is our dinnerware.

We'd played out similar scenarios for weeks, and still, I was asking, cajoling, harping, nagging, begging my two 9-year-olds to check off a few simple tasks.

Then I got some sage advice from a wise older mom who had been in these same pinchy shoes a few years back. To prove that rewards don't have to be store-bought or eaten out, she gave me a bunch of ideas that cost virtually nothing when done at home: a special dinner, a hot chocolate date, movie and popcorn night, a manicure.

I was skeptical at first. Would my daughters really think dinner with mom was special? But I was also game. Caitlin, Ellie, and I made paper coupons that each read "good job!" and listed a reward. We folded them up, stashed them in an old mason jar, and made a deal: do your chores three days in a row, and you pull a coupon to win a reward.

With only one or two reminders over three days, the jobs got done. Caitlin pulled dinner with mom. Ellie pulled hot chocolate with mom and dad.

The next night, I put a flowery tablecloth on the living room coffee table and added a couple of votive candles. While the rest of the family ate in the other room, Caitlin and I sat on the floor by our fancy table and had an amazing fireside meal. I heard more about school and her concerns than I'd heard in the last month of dinners. There was the good — a raccoon mask she finished in art; the sad — a vivid tale of a friend falling off the tire swing; and the troubling — a classmate who trips her on the way back from lunch almost daily. Later, when the other girls were settled in bed with books, Ellie, her dad, and I had an equally enlightening and enjoyable chat over cocoa with extra marshmallows.

Since then, Caitlin and Ellie have scored a healthy string of coupons. I can't say chore reminders are a thing of the past, but they are fewer and farther between. Best of all, I've learned that the value of time alone with each of my children is worth more than all the clean dishes in Portland.