Use My Summer Points System to Get Some Work Done with Your Kids Home!

Hi, everyone! This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and in today's video I'll talk about the system that I use during the hours I have to work over the summer to keep my kids busy, make them do some chores, and reward them at the end of the week. 

I am mostly a stay at home mom, but I do work part-time anywhere from 6-15 hours per week. Summer presents a problem for lots of parents.  When the kids were really little, I hired high school babysitters to help out several times a week so that I could get my work done in peace. Once they got a little older -- at the age where I could, occasionally and for short periods, leave them home alone, it started to feel weird to hire babysitters -- particularly since I was right there working in the house. Plus, they were old enough where I really felt like they should be expected to respect my work time and also get some of their own chores done. 

So, the summer when they were 8 and 10, I introduced the Summer Points System.  Generally, I would choose 2 or sometimes 3 days a week (depending on my workload and their activities) to be Summer Points days.  On those days, they would wake up to a list of chores printed out and sitting on the kitchen counter.  I would start working early on those days just to get an hour or 2 in before they were awake.  

The idea was, they had a list of chores to complete -- some of those chores were their normal morning chores (clean room, make bed, brush hair), some were extra (unload dishwasher and walk dog), and some were just the basics of being independent and not relying on me (making breakfast and lunch and cleaning up afterwards.)

Each chore was assigned a point value.  For any given day, there was a total number of points they could potentially earn.  If they did every chore on the list before I finished working for the day (usually around 1pm), they would get a perfect score.  That has never once happened.    Maybe you have different kids than I have.  My daughter is pretty dutiful and gung-ho, but my son procrastinates, drags his feet, and generally is disruptive. 

Because of all this, there are penalties. I take points taken off for a bunch of things. They get one free interruption a piece, but after that, I deduct 5 points for every interruption.  Every time I need to break up an argument and send them to their squabble chairs, it is 5 points off. If they are being excessively loud, I deduct 5 points.  Then if they didn't do their chores to my standards, I take points off. 

To counteract this, there are ways to earn bonus points. You can earn points for doing the following things: 

• Cleaning other areas of the house
• Doing a bucket of tennis serves
• Shooting baskets 15 minutes
• 15 extra minutes of reading
• Doing a craft and cleaning up
• Doing a science experiment and cleaning up

If you haven't already figured it out, the rough formula is about 5 points for each 15 minute activity that I encourage. 

At 1pm, when I stop working, I tally up the points -- I check to see what they have checked off, then I check to make sure those chores have actually been done, then I subtract points for  infractions and add points for bonus activities. I plug the points earned into a Google Sheets spreadsheet and I come out with a percentage. Over the course of the week, they have to stay above just 80% for the week and they will get a reward. YAY!  Reward!  But the quality of the reward depends on what their average percentage was for the week. 

Friday is reward day. I don't work on Fridays -- I plan to spend that time with the kids.  The reward doesn't usually take all day, but it can take a big hunk of a day.  So, here are the rewards they can earn based on percentage of points earned:

If they earn just 80% of their possible points, they can have "Free Fun". So that is crafts, games or a movie at home, a hike, a Smithsonian museum trip, or going to our local pool. All things that are free.  If they earn 95% of their possible points, they can have "Under $10 Fun". This is a per person figure. So, it includes going to a matinee movie, putt putt golf, bowling, ice skating, Chuck E Cheese or Luray Caverns. Earning 115% (which obviously means doing a bunch of extra stuff) allows for "Under $20 Fun" like a water park, paint your own pottery, a $20 target shopping spree or bringing a friend to any of the under $10 activities.  If they earn 135% of their possible points, they can do an "Under $40 Fun" like a ropes course or Six Flags Amusement Park.  They've never been able to do that in one week, but I do let them carry points over which I'll explain later. 

I figure this is WAY cheaper than spending money on babysitting!  Under the Summer Points System, at most I spend $20 per kid per week. Paying a babysitter -- I can blow through that amount in 3 or 4 hours.  And even better, they are doing chores, learning life skills, and doing stuff I want them to do -- all the while respecting the time I need to spend working. Plus, we get to do something fun at the end of the week together.  

Several things: 

• Rollover points - if they want to do something really expensive -- like go to an amusement park -- they can defer their reward. For example, Six Flags Amusement park costs around $40 a ticket. If they earn a $20 activity for 3 weeks, they can choose to do Free Fun for 2 weeks and roll the extra points over to the next week. That way, on the 3rd Friday we can go to the amusement park. 
• Lopsided - some weeks it doesn't seem fair that my daughter has done all of her chores and my son has sabotaged the system by refusing to hold up his end of the bargain. In those situations when the week is entirely lopsided, I will tally their points separately and reward one kid and not the other.  Harsh, but the only way to make sure they are pulling their respective weight. 
• Modifiable - we call this Summer Points in our house, but I will frequently modify this and use it throughout the year when the kids have breaks from school. I also have a morning or afternoon templates depending on when I can get my work hours in.

I do my calculations for this on a Google Sheets document. I'll put a link to the public spreadsheet template in the notes below. Feel free to copy this and use it if you'd like.  To do that, access the link that I provide -- you'll see that it is view only --  click on File and then Add to My Drive. Now that it is in your Drive, you'll have other options. Now choose File again and then Make a Copy. Call it whatever you want and you'll have a file you can modify for your own use.  Add your own chores, make your own rewards to suit your family. 

I'd love to hear how your family does if you use this or what your solution is. Comments below are really appreciated!  And thanks for watching.