Our part-time helper (who is the hubs’ kitchen helper) will not be coming to help us in the morning for the next few days, starting from today. And today has been an extremely busy day for me as today is a day that I am receiving stock from all my suppliers. Nonetheless, I can still squeeze out some time to update my blogs as I’ve always find that blogging helps to squeeze out the stress from my within. So I enlisted the help of my most reliable daughter to help me wash the dishes and mop the floor. And I paid Alycia RM5 for it.
My kids will help around the house but sometimes, they will do the chores reluctantly. Money has always been a good motivator for Alycia and Sherilyn. Alycia uses the money from rewards to buy comics and books that she likes. The mil ain’t too happy that I used money to reward Alycia for doing housework. I do not really encourage paying kids to help me but if it can take the stress and burden off me, why not? And it is better to channel my money to my own kids than to a part-time maid who costs way more. Tsk tsk, my mum used to pay me to wash the bathrooms too when I was a teenager ;P
Would you pay your kids to have housework done?
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If the MIL disagrees, I take it she has offered to do your housework for free? Since it is extra chores, I think it is quite a good idea to pay the kids a token sum. There are still regular chores that they all have to do for which it is an expectation. As well, if the kids want to buy a book/ toy etc, they can do extra chores to make the $. This is real life…have to work for $. My dtr once upon a time wanted to buy a horse. Did I say an outright no? Of course not. The deal was she saved for a saddle (can cost > CAD 1 000), and I would buy the horse! What a deal! She saved a total of $40 and abandoned the idea!! No argument, no tears, no labelling of “bad mummy”, and it was never brought up again!
You said it yourself, “…when I was a teenager.”
Paying kids to do house chores is like child labour, you know? Then again, kids in the US get paid for delivering newspapers, mowing the lawn and walking the dog.
On one hand, it’s good. On the other hand, it feels sort of wrong esp when you hear of young girls doing lots of “part-time work” to buy stuff they like. Know what I mean?
I started doing house chores when I was 10 i.e. boiling hot water, making my own breakfast, sweep/mop the floor and other basic housekeeping because I hated how messy our home looked in comparison to my friends’ houses 🙂
Later, I had to help hang out the laundry too. My dad paid me RM10-20 a month for ironing his shirts when I was 13-14, which made me happy. Mum didn’t agree 🙁
Luckily, nice uncles bought me cool stuff to make up for my “loss of income” and ease the tension between my mum and I. My dad also took us for holidays when he could afford it.
You’re a great mum – don’t let house chores and money come between your wonderful daughter and you. Reward Alycia for being a great girl, not for house choreslah…
I probably won’t pay cash but have a reward system instead – something along the lines of getting stars and then using the stars to redeem their chosen items.
End result is similar to paying $$ but somehow it feels more right to me.
the idea of paying my daughters to do the house chaos did come my minds some times ago but I did not start it because I am scare that they will ask me to pay them whenever I ask them to help me out in the future, what if I get old and no money, just worry, hope this will not happen, haaaa….
My girl has no idea of $$ yet.. so, to reward her from helping… a trip to jalan2.. still it cost $$ right.. if they already know the value of $$, why not? then they know $$ need to be earn.. not ‘tan tai sau pan’ then can get.. I used to be paid RM3 to wash my dad’s car..
Hmm…i haven’t started the money reward yet with mine and i’m glad that she is willing to help me with some chores. i hope this will continue till she’s in her teens 😛
mmm … I dont pay M for doing house chores, except for hanging clothes, because it happens only in the summer and not on daily basis. If I keep on paying money for doing house work on a daily basis, she would be very rich (according to her world) by now … 😉
I wouldn’t wanna use money too. Now that helping me to do simple chore is a must, they must learn to do it, like it or not. QQ still doesn’t wanna do the dishes, but she will fold the clothes and the boys follow automatically now whenever they see us folding clothes.
If rewarding helps, and if Alycia likes comic books, you might wanna buy some at home as “reward” for her weekly effort to help mummy out? Better to give a present instead of cash i think 🙂
Actually I did not give Alycia physical cash. Each day that she helps me, I record it in her notebook. When we go shopping, I will total up her ‘earnings’ and she gets to buy a book of her choice using her ‘earnings’. I wont give physical cash. What’s she going to do with all the cash, right? Too dangerous for a 9YO girl to keep cash and I dont want her to buy rubbish in school.
I will pay for the story book/comic/reward when we go shopping and less out the amount from her earnings. So her notebook is like a bank S/A book 🙂 No physical cash is involved.
I think I will.. though I’ve not done it yet but I think I’ll definitely will 🙂
well done Shireen. an absolutely good idea to use the ‘Buku 555’ to keep track of the $$ and then use them to buy her something very useful like a book…hehehehe.
I didn’t reward them money for helping me in housechores. I make it as their responsibility to lighter my burden. I only reward them money if they do well in studies.