I just read a GREAT article at BeingFrugal.net entitled “How I Taught My Preschooler the Value of a Dollar“. I think it’s a brilliant strategy not only for teaching kids about personal responsibility and chores, but also that with hard work comes rewards.
I love finding great ideas online that provide the exact tool I’m looking for to help teach CootieGirl and CootieBoy about WHY we want them to clean their rooms or go potty (the obvious reasons notwithstanding). So, I made chore charts for the kids. CG’s has a princess at the top, and CB’s has Spiderman. They each have FIVE things on their list (they are easy – things like making their bed, cleaning up their rooms, brushing their teeth and (for CB) going potty IN the potty).
I haven’t decided what their rewards will be – I’m hesitant to let them buy toys since they (currently) don’t take care with them right now. So it may start with just giving them actual money for them to put in their piggy banks. A dollar for each day they do ALL FIVE chores, with payout being after the week is over. My kids love handling pennies and quarters enough that they’d probably be on board with that for a while.