Of sticks, jars, money and many things..

First to give credit where it is due, I got the original idea for this super awesome thing which works for us here.
It was a day of joy and gladness when I discovered it, thanks again :)
And here are my adaptations:
First instead of colouring the tips, we got coloured craft sticks and let each kid pick a colour. 'Cos they are pretty. And I'm very practical like that. Actually it does make it easier to spot when you add in the allowance earning sticks (which you will learn about later- patience, grasshopper). Can you guess which jar belongs to the princess?




We painted one end with a white tip. We wrote everything I ever nag them about on a daily basis on a separate stick. For my four year old, I drew a little picture too.

(The red sticks in the older boys' jars are for things which are not daily requirements or voluntary things that they wanted regular reminders on-like writing in their journals and updating their cute little blog).

SO: every day we start with all the sticks white-side down. When I hear the first stirrings of a fight each morning I say faux-brightly, (in that irritating way moms do when they are about to make their children suffer), "has everyone done their sticks?". And then they groan, and shoot dagger "now look what you've gone and done" expressions at the sibling they were about to fight with, and go and do them.

It's great!

Before we go out each day to do something fun, all the sticks must be white-side up (within reason). I no longer have to tell people to do their hair, or brush their teeth, or make their beds, or do their chore of the day or practice their instruments. It is all neatly encompassed under one cheerful and easily spoken nag "have you done your sticks yet?" It has really made the kids a lot more self-sufficient and has the added blessing of everyone experiencing less exposure to my lecturey voice. Our chore wheel has remained in use, since one of the sticks instructs, "do your chore on the wheel". The first person to get there each day gets to be Vanna White and spin the wheel.



And then there is the ever debated, agonized over allowance issue. Ok here are my basic stipulations regarding allowance:

1. I want it to be a reasonable facsimile of how real life works. You do work, you get paid. You don't do work, you do not get paid. You choose. If you do a lot of work, you get paid more (in a perfect world eh?), if you do a little work, not so much.

2. I do not want to pay my children for things that they need to do for the privilege of living in this house. Being part of a family means you don't get paid for making your bed. Fah gosh sakes.

3. I want the work=money connection to be easily apparent to them.

4. I want to pay them for stuff that we actually need done. I want their work to truly be of value.

So this is what we've come up with. We have a stick jar devoted entirely to money-earning type jobs. It is creatively named: $Job Jar$



On each stick there is a job description and a monetary value attached to the job.

They can select the job they want to do (or don't want to as the case may be, but hey, money talks). Once the job is done they take the stick and put it white side up in their individual jar.


We take the stick(s) out of their jar, and replace it with the payment. The job stick then goes back into the job jar. We keep it white side up if the job is not required (don't want two people sweeping the deck within minutes of each other) and turn it white side down once we need that particular job done again.


I also love that I don't have to come up with a job on the spot when they decide they need some cash to support their Webkinz habit, and I can also add jobs as I see the need for them which fulfills that whole "work of value" requirement.

Our kids then take the money deposited in their jars, and deposit it into their money banks (which have separate boxes for tithing, savings, spending etc. And it's really theirs to handle from there on out.) I have a friend who keeps her kids money separated in jars where they can see it grow and how it is distributed, which I think is a nice incentive-nothing like seeing your nest egg grow.

One thing my accountant dad did when I was growing up, which I thought was quite brilliant was to give each kid a little ledger book. We had to account for every penny of our pocket money each month (keeping a running balance) before we got paid again. We could spend it how we liked, we just had to be able to account for it. It was rather stressful for the math impaired but it was a very valuable exercise. My older two boys are old enough now for us to institute this I think. I love this as a teaching tool because the number one rule of successful money management is knowing where your money is going. (Or so all the books tell me).

Over my near decade of parenting I have come to the conclusion that nothing works forever. No matter how brilliantly it may at first. You really do have to switch things up fairly regularly it seems. Really, the stick concept it just a graduation from the story-board concept we were using before:


with an easy way to keep track and no stickers or star charts or things to check off.

But sticks..sticks are what are working for us right now. Hope this helps someone. What works for you?

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