This will probably be my H & my first full-blown POJA. The reason I'm posting here instead of 101 is because my question isn't actually about POJA, it's about what's "usual" for setting chores for middle school kids. I know everyone has different ideas about this, so I expect a wide variety of responses, but that's kinda what I'm after - what's the spectrum.

My 12yo D is in 7th grade, and athletics (A-Team volleyball & basketball and will be doing track in the spring). The homework load for Jr. High (she's also in all AP classes) has really thrown her for a loop. Most nights she's doing homework all the way until her bedtime or after, and of course there's game nights where she doesn't even get home until 8pm or later.

We've never given the girls a lot of chores, but they've always had some. D12 has been in charge basically of the cats & trash/recycling for years. So daily: litter boxes, check food/water for cats; and weekly (Tues, Fri): trash/recycling. She's never been really good about remembering to do her chores, over the years we've tried reminder systems, reward systems, nagging, fussing, docking allowance, what have you. She just forgets. Now it's even worse with the other things going on. Mind you, I'm not blind to the fact she has not yet developed very efficient study skills, so her homework could take less time, and she dallies around her chores, so they take longer than they do when I or H do them.

But it's become a huge issue for H that her chores go undone for days, especially the cat boxes, and the cat's water will run dry and he has to fill it. I agree that it's a problem, and we need to find a solution.

Compounding the problem is that when our marriage was in serious trouble, one of the huge issues was the way he treated the girls (each from our 1st marriages) completely differently. His D (now 18) was rarely hounded about her chores (which were not daily, but sporadic chores) and rarely did her chores, but suffered no real consequences. The excuse was that her homework load was so bad that she didn't need the extra stress. Mind you, she was in 1/2 of the AP classes D12 is now, and her extra curricular activities were clubs, not athletics, so there were no games, etc. D12 resents that she was always punished for not doing her chores, and now that her homework load is similar to what D18's was when this was going on, thinks she should get the same excuses. H has since realized he pandered too much to D18, but it doesn't erase the memories for me or D12.

D12 also has taken on the care of our new dog, and stepped up admirably to that. She has come to despise the cat care over the years.

I am of a mind to step back and look at the overall goals of chores for kids, which I see as:
1. get things done around the house
2. spread the load so the kid takes responsibility for house "stuff"
3. teach responsibility to the kid

With these goals in mind, I don't see that it's necessary that D12 keep doing the same chores she's been doing for years. I'm willing to take over the cat care, since she's doing the dog care (including the 5:30 or 6:00am walks), and there's some weekly things that haven't been done routinely for years because D18 never did them regularly that I'd like to shift to her like the floors and dusting that she could work around her homework and game schedule.

My fear is that H will see this as pandering to D12 and I don't want to DJ by throwing in his face that he pandered much more to D18, but at the same time, the history is pertinent because it influences how I *and* D12 see things.

Sorry for the novel, I just want to make sure I handle this right.

This is just me, but I would determine FIRST, who wants what?

People, I have found, will take care of their own wants. So, for instance, if your H wants the floor clean but D doesn't so much care, why should D be the one who does it? If it's your cat, but D has to clean the box, then I say either YOU clean it or get rid of the cat you won't take care of.

This has been a hard lesson for me, being the SAHM, and having everyone expect me to take care of all domestic issues, whether they are issues for me or not. Also, getting kids to take care of things they don't care about is hard...you sometimes have to get silly about it, like putting the full trash bag in someone's room so they will CARE if the trash is taken out.

For me, I would find out what everyone CARED to take care of, then find the things nobody wants to take care of, and divy those up by draw. I scream No Fair! when one person cares to have a mirror spotless and expects another person to keep it so. No Fair if it's your H's cat and he expects your daughter to tend to its care. If nobody wants it enough to take care of it, then adopt it out.

The only problem I see with this is that at 12, D doesn't "care" about much of anything... dishes, floors, etc. She doesn't even care if her room is so cluttered with dirty clothes that she can't walk across it. She doesn't care if her clothes get in the bin for laundry day until it's the next week and she doesn't have any clean clothes. And even then, the consequence I've set for missing laundry day is that she has to wash her own clothes, which she will do and say she doesn't care. We haven't had the argument since H started IC, but that used to drive him around the bend, because since she doesn't care and the consequence doesn't phase her, it's not a severe enough consequence. I don't believe that the consequence has to hurt a lot, I just believe it needs to be logical. I don't know how he'll respond now, it hasn't come up since he has changed his interaction style.

oh, and... I completely agree with you about the cats thing... the cats (we have FIVE... I know, we're nuts) are generally everyone's, but we've realized since getting the dog that D really isn't a "cat person", she's much more a "dog person". She's fine with poop-scooping the yard periodically, but despises doing the cat boxes. She remembers twice a day to feed the dog, but rarely remembers to just check the cats' food & water. So I think the cats' responsibility should go to me (I'm willing to do it) and the dog's should stay with her.

I think the laundry is a good one. She may not care, and the consequence is a natural one. Personally, all of our children do their own laundry and the youngest is 11 and has been doing her own laundry (with help) for a couple of years now. So I'd just hand it off and NEVER do her laundry again. If she doesn't have a clean uniform, or whatever, then she bears the consequence. At some point, she'll care.

So what if she doesn't care on the outside, eventually it will bite her when she is out of clothes, has to study and has a game hit all at once.

Don't bail her out if that's the case.

Now if some of the things involve work in public areas such as taking out trash and what not, a consequence could be you are not leaving to drive her to practice/game/whatever, until her chores are done.

If she is not concerned with getting chores done on time, why should you be concerned about getting her to a game on time.

Expose her to her own standard, and ask her if she wants to be treated in the same fashion she treats others.

Again, natural and logical consequences that she will care about.

What does she care about, that will help.

Part of it is just that age. My step son is 17, and we went through that. He's getting better as he learns to better manage his time, sees that it's not all about him, etc.

But part of it is also logical consequences. Just yesterday he took off in the car, while was still cold at what appeared to be full throttle. I sent him a text message that said he won't have a car to drive if he accelerates hard on a cold engine again. And I meant it.

I'm of the mind that chores aren't given, so much as they are taken on. I also think that although children need to be taught how to maintain a household, I'm pretty well against forcing them to maintain a household they were simply borne into. You set up house; you keep it. They'll have their own later.

That said, I see the disparity in your house about who should be doing what. Will your H get on board with making a chore chart? IMHO, there's things that must be done daily, weekly, and quarterly. (for instance, dishes daily, bathrooms weekly, a top-to-bottom full clean quarterly)

So you two could come up with a chore chart for each, and then sit down together with dd (dds? Is the oldest still home?) and take turns picking your top three (or one, or five, depending on the depth of your chart). The rest get divvied up in rotation by draw or something like that.

You could get creative with consequences, too. Draw of the hat may work there, as well. Get dd's input on consequences, too, then write them up and put them in a jar. When she fails to follow through, then at dinner or whenever your decide, SHE gets to blindly draw what her consequence is. No phone for a week, next social outing gets an auto-NO, she has to pick up a chore from either of you the next day/week, etc.

Just throwing ideas at you.

AC, you might also want to take the pets off the kids chore list altogether. Better all around if a responsible adult is always in charge of their care. I'm sure there's plenty of chores to take its place!


:HappyHolidays:

Thanks so much for all the feedback.

No, D18 is off at college now. So it's H, D12, and me left to manage the house. I am an admitted slob (though I'm getting better). And since I've been the only income for our entire marriage, H has been handling 99% of the household chores. We're trying to transition me back into some of the routines because he's student teaching in the Spring (no $$, but it's near-full-time) and will graduate in May and start working, then we need to be splitting the household stuff more equitably.

Most of the reasons we got a dog revolve around D12, so all of us like the idea of D12 keeping up the dog duties. H and I follow up behind her to make sure the dog is fed & walked & such.

Well, that was uneventful.

Seems I'd mentioned the change in chores a couple of weeks ago and then didn't implement it, so H has just been waiting on me to do it.

He's completely fine with having me distribute the chore load for D12, he just wants to start having things done when they're supposed to be, and is grateful to me for being willing to take over the chores I'm unloading from her.

So we're going to sit down with D12 and sort out officially (and make a chart) about who does what, and when it's expected to be done... get her input and make sure everything is clearly communicated.

I'm slowly learning not to anticipate problems even before I've discussed them with H. New patterns & all.