negotiated chores

[Niels Olson]

we recently doubled-down on our efforts to maximize our use of
positive reinforcement with the kids

http://wherein.posterous.com/a-negotiated-settlement

which I submitted for discussion here:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2553153

[Jem]

See, my thoughts on this (and feel free to dismiss as newbie parent
cynicism - my little girl is only 18mo old) is that if you set a
precedent for paying for chores, there comes a time where you ask your
kid to do X and they say "at what price?"

I don't mind pocket money, but I think that helping out around the
house should be expected (maintaining the communal living area) rather
than rewarded.

At the minute I say things to my daughter like "it would be helpful to
mummy if you could take X to daddy" and so on. Although she's too
small for regimented chores, she gets to feel like she's doing
something AMAZING just for mum, and I get a willing little helper. :)

[Peter Van Dijck]

In my (also limited, 3yr old) experience, kids LOVE to help out with little chores that their parents are also doing at that age.

P

--
http://petervandijck.com/ 

http://twitter.com/petervandijck
Skype id: peterkevandijck
USA tel (SkypeIn nr.): (646) 502-8604

[Niels Olson]

OP here: Thanks for the rejoinders. I was getting concerned I had just
thrown a pebble into an empty well. Here's some additional arguments:

My six year-old son was actually bartering prices down from our
starting points, clearly responding to my wife's efforts to resist my
daughter's bid to increase prices. I think what you're seeing is a
young child's simple desire to please. Barring catastrophe, they will
grow beyond that.

The kids help around the house. But they are also getting old enough
to realize they have goals of their own unrelated and at times in
conflict with the family's plan, especially our 9 yo daughter. She's
getting crafty, clearly willing to negotiate. Which warms my heart.
But, rather than negotiating every single chore, which can be
extremely time-consuming and often counter-productive, I thought it
made sense to negotiate a settlement. How much do you pay? Enough to
take money off the table. This also gives them a framework for more
sophisticated negotiations, and provides them an object lesson in the
contracting process, and some experience with the difference between
salaried work and fee-for-service.

This also gives us a privilege we can take away, so, like timeouts,
it's a negative reinforcer if necessary. Not the main goal, but a
potentially useful side effect (eg: the prime rule at the top of the
list is that chores will be done with dignity and respect, or no
payment will be rendered).

They also get the opportunity to save money. My daughter managed to
save over $100 (over several months) just from picking up dog poo. I
didn't save $100 inflation-adjusted dollars by the age of 8: that's
about $50 when I was a kid, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics,
which I didn't save until I got a paper route in the summer after 4th
grade.

Really, if they do everything, we get a clean house daily for about
$20-30 a week. Find a maid that will work at those rates.

[Peter Van Dijck]

Really, if they do everything, we get a clean house daily for about
$20-30 a week. Find a maid that will work at those rates.

Sounds like a great system. Basic chores have to be done, extra chores can be negotiated for $. And they learn to work for money, save etc. Awesome. Not to mention the cheap child labor ;)

[Matt Murphy]

As someone who has a higher tolerance for clutter than most of the people I've ever lived with (including my parents), I can attest to the arbitrariness of any requirement of tidiness or neatness.  Thus, in assigning a child chores and tasks, one is training the child either to develop a neurosis about messes (based on shame), to submit to authority, or simply to enjoy pleasing others' arbitrary whims.

I really like the idea of paying for chores.  As a child a few dollars would have gone a long way toward making me enthusiastic about the endless cleanups, vacuuming an already clean rug, etc.  My parents refused to pay for chore completion on principle, so it always felt as though I was being coerced, or that there was an attempt being made to change my view on how unpleasant a bit of clutter should feel to me or how satisfying a clean room should feel.  I'm proud to say that none of those attempts worked :)

Money is a wonderful way of mapping between two separate individuals' utility functions.  As young individuals with their own utility functions, children deserve to benefit from this as well.