Fun putty bundle is a winner!

@ironcheftoni oh yeah, I have a 14 year old as well and it’s much harder to motivate her to do extra chores. Putty just isn’t going to cut it She is really good about doing her regular chores though. Just hoping it stays that way.

@ironcheftoni @mbersiam What I did with my teen was when she informed me that she is doing more of the work around the house than I am is I made a list of Every. Single. Thing. that needed to be done to make the household - inside and in the yard - operate (including earning the living and related work and going to school and related work - we were each required to choose the appropriate one from that column; I also had things like pay the bills, put gas in the car, go grocery shopping, she and stuff that she wasn’t old enough to do). I had ones we had to do our own self - our own rooms

I divided them into done daily, a couple times a week, weekly, several times a month, monthly. Less often than that or seasonally. I then told her she needed to pick X number of things out of each category.

So then after she chose I asked her who had more chores - me or her.

We also made some deals - for example who ever cooked dinner the other had to do the dishes…

This also told me what she liked least to do (cat dirt box, toilet - she had chosen everything in the bathroom except that) which is what got assigned when she missed the bus or I had to drive her homework to school (it was 8+ miles from us) as when I had to do stuff like that she owned me double that time in whatever I chose for her to do (cut way back on miss the bus or forget homework).

I set a new rule for chores too. Daily ones that weren’t done by X time, Weekly by X time on Day X, etc… The world ended and nothing could be done until that chore was done, or done by Saturday (picked that as she and her friends often did things on Friday or Saturday night). I’d say at, typically 6pm (we usually ate dinner at 5), 'Take as long as you want to do X. When you are done you can do Y (whatever it was she wanted to do - typically go outside and play in the street with the boys at the basketball hoop or hang out with whomever was outside - we lived on a dead end street)." Yeah the same as you can’t do Y until you do X but gave her the control back (sort of) which helps with teens.

So the first couple of times she’d walk away from the dishes and turn on the TV. I’d turn it off. Take as long as you want to do the dishes. When you are done you can watch TV. Rinse and repeat for whatever she was trying to do instead of do dishes. A couple of times this went on for several days, once until we ran out of dishes, pots and pans (I had hidden a set of dishes for me).

One day I served dinner, had my clean dishes out for me and nothing for her. She looked surprised her place wasn’t set. She asked what she was supposed to eat off of. I shrugged and said, “use your hands and eat off the table?”. She said, “all the dishes are dirty”. I said, “so eat off of dirty ones”. She stomped over to the sink and washed some to eat off of. After dinner she did the dishes without a word from me. Generally after that they got done (although if the kids were playing ball in the street I had to check the oven and cabinets for dirty pots and pans). After that, regardless of the chore when I said, “Take as long as you want…” I’d get that teen nasty nose through their nose and she’d stomp off. Occasionally she convinced friends to help her (or paid them LOL) so she could leave the house faster (I did not make her actually do them, just as long as they were done to some minimal standard; if the standard was missed, we’d be back to: take as long as you want to do a good (adding good) job doing X…).

I then paid her on occasion, or she could earn extra perks, etc. for doing some of the chores on the list no one had (aka I had). She’d come to me sometimes telling me she’d money what on the chore list could she do. I’d often say, if you do these 2 for free I’ll pay you to do this one (one of the ones less easy/nice to do). There were still hassles but not nearly as many and the school bus almost never got missed, things almost never got forgotten (I’d joke sometimes I needed her to miss the bus - when she was running behind although I didn’t say anything about that - just that I needed something really nasty done; please miss it - so she never did). I ignored attitude, grumbling, muttering, swearing her way through a chore, as long as it was done to a decent level. Goal was chores done right. The rest of it wasn’t relevant. Attitude got addressed in other contexts as I wanted the fights to be focused on the chores and not diverted by something else.

Your mileage may vary.

Typos “teen nasty nose through their nose” is “noise through their nose” and “sometimes telling me she’d money what on the chore list could she do” is “she needed money” - no allowance as she was old enough to babysit, do yard work for others - she’d earn $2-300 raking pine needles and selling them on craiglist - I’d pay only for the bags. She’d even rake other people’s yards to fulfill orders LOL.

@Kidsandliz why wouod people buy pine needles?

@mbersiam gardening. And she was selling what she bagged for 1/2 of what it would cost to buy it commercially, didn’t have leaves, sticks or pine cones in it.

@Star2236 WOW! Send her my way anytime!

@cbilyak
I know right.

@Star2236 As long as it is done regularly, I don’t find cleaning the toilet all that objectionable. I certainly would rather swish my toilet bowl with a long-handled brush than scoop out the cats’ litter box. Except in rare instances, I usually don’t do either - the housekeeper cleans the bathrooms every other week and my wife deals with the cat box (I take care of the dogs). Works for us.

@capnjb Handy too for the occasional telnet or good old serial.

KuoH