Responsibility Chart

So proud of the 21 smiles he earned.

Jonathan's mini chart is on the bottom board.

We've been having some trouble lately with respect, love and kindness in our house. So I was out shopping one day and found this great Responsibility Chart by Melissa & Doug. We had been thinking about creating a type of chart with stickers, but this one is magnetic, which makes it easy to add and remove smiles as needed. And unfortunately, we do lose smiles on certain days.

This chart has been a bigger hit than I anticipated. Andrew wants to please and be good, but sometimes he gets out of control. This chart has served as a good reminder for not only chores, but also manners and behavior issues. We've had to modify the use of some of the pre-made categories, like "Don't use bad words." Not so much an issue, but we don't always use nice or kind words, so that's how we use that one. And "Do Homework" is another category we've modified. Preschoolers don't have homework, but they do need to do their work at school and cooperate. Another small issue we were having a couple weeks ago, which seems to have resolved itself!

We haven't figured out the reward system yet. We plan to keep track of the number of smiles he earns, and he can bank them to buy something big or use a few to buy screen time. The details don't seem to be important to him right now. He's just excited to go over his chart each night after dinner to see how many smiles he's earned. Hopefully this chart will work for a long time until the good behaviors become habit!

And Jonathan didn't want to be left out, so we added a couple categories for him. Unfortunately he hasn't been as motivated to earn smiles as Andrew. He's only earned a couple so far, but we're working on his manners, too!