Little Homeschool on the Prairie: The Everyday Family Chore System a Review

Recently, my family has been putting together a chore system from Everyday Homemaking and their The Everyday Family Chore System. I received a downloadable PDF book for this review.

Everyday Homemaking is created by Viki Bently a homeschool mamma of eight girls and countless foster children since 1986. Viki is passionate about teaching the art of homemaking. It’s so important to learn how to be organized with keeping a tidy house and even cooking. She also offers an Everyday Cooking book.

My kids do chores around our house and I find that I often have to remind them the majority of the time to do chores. Then I have a daughter with disabilities and getting her to do chores is a slow progress. Everything takes her so long to do or she forgets what she is doing and stops mid-way into the chore. There are days I find it less stressful and easier just to do it myself. Where I struggle with is my son. I sometimes feel guilty putting so much work on his plate. So I get relaxed with what he does. My son is very willing to help without complaining-he just needs the gentle reminder. I’m just my own worst enemy and find that I can never get anything completely done these days.

That is where I was hoping that The Everyday Family Chore System would be beneficial to my family.

The Everyday Family Chore System is broken down into three parts:

Part 1: Laying the Foundation

Part 2: Implementing the Plan

Part 3: The Actual Chore System

There is an Introduction and a section for Suggested Resources.

Part 1: Laying the Foundation:

I think this is my favorite section. Truly we need to put our focus on our children’s hearts. It’s more than making them diligent workers. I want my children to grow up to be a Godly man and woman. That is a foundation that we as parents are responsible for. We work so hard to teach our children academically but, how about the heart issue.

Yes, we want our children to be responsible members to our family and to serve one another. In the end that responsibility will affect the foundation of the heart.

Something I took away from this section is to TEACH your kids to clean rather than telling them to do so. Their clean is not my clean! At first you need to work with them so you can model what they need to do.

Some topics are touched on like:

Having realistic age-appropriate expectations for children is very important. Having a special needs child this let me see things in a new light. Just because she is 14 doesn’t mean she can do what other kids her age can do.

What about Establishing rules or standards? Do our children know what we expect or do you change those standards. What are God’s rules and house rules?

Another section that I like is Tie love strings to their heart. This section talks about relationships, laughing with them, show interest in what they have to say. Give your children choices and do things with your children. This is my favorite section.

Part 2: Implementing the Plan

This section is going to give you help with figuring out what chores need to be done daily or even weekly in your home. In this section there is a 2 page list that breaks down some chores that could be done by age. She starts at age 2 and goes up to the teen years. I found this section helpful with my daughter and I have to admit that some of the chores I have asked her to accomplish in the past are probably not a good fit with her mental age. Of course every child is different but, this section was thought provoking for me.

The list includes things other than household chores like learning your phone number, emergency numbers, and address. For the older kids there are helpful things that I personally wouldn’t have thought of like check tire air pressure/putting air into a tire, proper use of a credit card, change furnace air filter, or return an item at the store.

There are sample schedules and suggestions that can work with your home. There are printed chore cards and blank cards for you to make your own chores that need to be done in your house. There are several suggestions on how to assign your children chores.

For my daughter getting ready in the morning is difficult. She gets distracted with everything. So there is a tip section for daily schedule with things that need to be done before school like devotions, grooming, and morning chores.

Part 3: The Actual Chore System:

This is where you will find the chore system which includes printables for chores. I’m not a big fan of PDF books but, for something like this I would 100% tell you this is the way to go.

Like I mentioned earlier there are blank cards and ones that already have the chores on them. There is a nice plethora of, “How to Do it Cards”.

What if the chore cards or “How to Do it Cards” don’t fit your home you can use these as a starting point to make your own.

I hear a lot of people say they got their home in order with chores. Think of this as a book that my help you reevaluate your home chore system. I think sometimes things change and we don’t recognize that we need to do things different. Maybe we are busier and trying to do everything in the time we have always done isn’t flying anymore. If your use to doing things on a certain day of the week it may be causing stress because so and so is suppose to be doing XYZ on certain days or in the morning. You can use the system or tweak it.

Another part that is helpful is a detail explanations on expectations of cleaning.

Younger kids may not be able to read the cards so you could put clip arts on the blank cards to make this work.

How did I use The Everyday Family Chore System?

The first week I spent reading over the material and writing up a chart of what needs to be done. I then went back over the material to print out the cards that I knew would work for my family. I printed out a few of the blank pages.

I reevaluated my 14 year olds chores and broke it down to some basics. She needs a list in the morning as she will forget what she is doing even with dressing. The list above is just general as she will do other chores. I have found that if I make a list too long it causes melt downs and it works if I just ask her to help me. Cards just don't work for her. I still have a list she doesn’t see.

My 11 year old son doesn’t like the cards as it makes him feel childish if his friends see charts with his name on it. I put cards in a pocket for him to grab. It doesn’t stand out and it’s still a visible reminder of what he needs to do.

One of his chores is taking care of the animals. I sometimes let my daughter get involved in caring for the animals. For the most part I only let her feed them or give them water. She rubs her face to often and I'm not keen on her doing the cleaning of other things with the animals.

If your needing a facelift in your chore schedule Everyday Homemaking is a great way to start. You can adapt it to fit your life or you can use it as it is.

Right now you can save 10% off The Everyday Family Chore System and/or Everyday Cooking (print or e-book) through Labor Day! The code is TOS10books --can apply it to as many books in their cart as they'd like, but you need to shop first, and then apply the 10% discount code last~Expires Sept 5, 2017.

I don't have any negative complaints as I think this is a very cost effective and realistic chore system.

Don’t forget to see what other members at the Homeschool Crew Review have to say. Some of them are reviewing Everyday Cooking.