Parenting Cents

Well, it’s Proposal Day.  Today is the day that I’m supposed to have proposals on my desk from our daughters, aged 5 and 9.  On the way to school this morning, G (9) was unsure of what she was going to propose, but she said she does want jobs.  Why?  “So I can earn some more money.”   It wasn’t an enthusiastic answer, but it was a positive answer.

M (5), on the other hand, has known what she wants her jobs to be since the time she was fired.  We may actually have to negotiate her down to some more manageable occupations, though, because her preliminary list contained things like “clean the entire house.”  Admittedly, she could probably clean the entire house just as well as I could…  but the quality of my work in that area wouldn’t be worth 25 cents per day either.  

Assuming we can get new jobs negotiated, each kid will have one week to use as a trial period.  They’ll have checklists next week and will be expected to complete them every day, but they won’t be paid for it.  If they do an acceptable job on their checklists for that week, then we’ll re-hire them for the following week.

I hope the girls are actually learning real-world lessons out of this.  I’m not certain that it’s all sinking in, but I think some of it is.  Regardless, they are both excellent kids who tend not to whine, complain, beg, fight, or blame.  They’re doing a great job of being great kids, and that’s what allows us to work on programs like this checklist system to help them achieve goals beyond the basics.

And if they fail to do well at their new jobs…  I’ll fire them again.    

Well, that’s it.  The kids are fired.

As of today, G has emptied the dishwasher once and cleaned out Speedy’s litter box twice.  Needless to say, Speedy is not happy and neither am I.  G has also been neglecting her guitar, the lessons for which we are paying.  Her new Nintendo DS seems to be taking up every spare moment, at the expense of her actual responsibilities.  That’s something I thought would happen, and I couldn’t resist giving her an “I told you so” talk about it.

M has checked off “Garbage” every day this week.  The problem is that she hasn’t done the job every day.  A technicality, I know, but I can’t let it go.  She has been telling her mother that she doesn’t care whether she gets to earn money or not.  So now we’re letting her not.

We have informed both girls that they will not be paid for what they did – which isn’t much – this week.  They are also unemployed for at least two weeks.  If they come back to us with acceptable proposals, we’ll begin negotiations again.  They each need to bring us a list of jobs they are willing to do and the amount they would charge for each.  G (age 9) has said that she would like to keep the same jobs and just put more effort into getting them done.  M (age 5) has already created a list of jobs, including “Clean the entire house”, “Dust everything”, “Brush Speedy’s hair”, and “Clean mirrors”.  We’ll have to help her refine the list a bit to make it manageable for someone her age.  We also need to discuss her rate of pay, as she initially proposed being paid $10 to brush the cat.  I think I’d rather give the cat a cardboard box and let him take care of the brushing himself.

Including this week, they’ll each have at least three weeks of lost revenue.  I’m not sure what impact that will actually have with them, but I’m interested to see whether there’s an increase in motivation the next time they find that “gotta have it” item and don’t have the money to buy it.

Our kids seem to have lost interest in their jobs checklists.  With school in session and other activities going on, the check marks have been getting recorded less and less frequently.  G has her Nintendo DS with a little bit of money left and no big spending goals on the horizon, so her motivation has taken a downturn.  Suddenly, laundry is too hard or too inconvenient to do, the dishwasher can stay filled, and the cat is apparently expected to fend for himself most days (poor little guy).

M has also slacked off even more than usual lately.  The week before last, she earned a dismal $1.25 by completing 5 of her 21 tasks.  Last week, I believe there were 6 check marks.  Neither of the girls has been paid for last week, however, because I was out of town over the weekend, and no one has asked for their money.  We’ll see how long it takes for them to realize they’re missing their money.

After seeing that both checklists for this week are still blank, I told the girls last night that they would be fired from their jobs and lose their source of income if their performance did not improve.  The threat had no impact, though.  As we left for school this morning, I discovered that poor little Speedy Cat has been left to fend for himself once again. 

Sundays are normally pay day at our house.  The girls each turn in their checklists for the prior week, we count up the completed jobs, and I pay them out of our Kid Commission envelope.  This past week being their first week back to school, I’ve had to repeatedly remind both of them to do their jobs when they are home.  It’s made a difference in one sense – their checklists are more complete than in the past few weeks.  There are still many more blank boxes though, which is disappointing to me and should be to them as well.

I decided today that I am not going to remind them about pay day.  We’ll see how much it actually means for them.  9-year-old G, who is saving for that Nintendo DS, went through the Best Buy ad in the paper this morning, hoping to see a reduced price.  Nope.  They didn’t even advertise them this week.  Thinking about her goal apparently didn’t motivate her to do her jobs for today.  Speedy Cat continues to walk around the house in a huff, irritated that it’s nearly 10 AM and his litter box and food dish haven’t been freshened since yesterday.

We’ll see how this goes today.  My prediction: Neither kid will get their jobs done for today – putting them behind for this week already – and pay day will end up being forgotten until tomorrow (at least).  I’ve apparently got to work on the motivation factor.