My son will be turning seven in just a few short weeks. He is at a great age to begin doing small chores around the home to teach him life skills and give him a sense of accomplishment. A chore chart for children and teens is a great way of helping them keep an organized list of their daily/weekly responsibilities and see what areas they are succeeding in and what areas can be improved. We recently tested out such a chart from Goalforit and it was so easy (and fun) to set age-appropriate and attainable goals for my son.

Setting up an account and chore chart at Goalforit is quick, easy, and FREE. Once you’ve registered an account and selected an age group, a list of age-appropriate chores will be offered. A few things I wanted my son to begin working on was dressing himself completely, picking up his toys, minding his manners, listening in school, and practicing his reading. Here is a sample chore chart from their website:

The charts are customizable according to themes and since my son loves anything to do with the military, we chose the camouflage chart theme.  Once I chose the chores I wanted him to work on, for every day he completed them, we would fill in the circle with a star.  At the end of the week, the results are tallied for each chore and you can choose to reward your child with a success sticker or a sticker that says they need more improvement, plus whatever reward you see fit.  These charts can be used online or printed to use in your own home.  You can also create an optional reward system for additional positive reinforcement that allows kids to earn points while they learn.  If your child loves being rewarded (and what kid doesn’t?), then they will really like that feature.  Their points are stored into a piggy bank and you can choose the rewards and how many points they have to earn to spend them. 

For our own personal use, I haven’t activated the feature to earn points yet, simply because he gets a weekly allowance and we wanted to incorporate these new responsibilities into that.  So far, he is being a lot more helpful.  He still balks at homework, but I know it’s perfectly normal.  I’m proud of his behavior in school (which is recorded in his folder and sent home daily) and he is taking more responsibility for his own self-care (bathing, dressing, brushing teeth).  This chore chart seems to be motivating him a little more, but we still have plenty of work to do on picking up toys.  I know he will get there eventually. 

I work with children on a daily basis and I see the power that positive reinforcement can have on how they choose to behave and how focused they are on getting a job completed.  I think this chore chart is an excellent motivating tool for any child and just might make your daily routine a little easier. 

I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Select on behalf of Goalforit.com and received compensation for doing so.  All opinions are strictly my own. 

Parents of young children face new challenges every day, many of which cannot be foreseen. After all, children are all different, and there is simply no predicting what they will need or how they will develop. On the one hand, this can be fun for parents, as it is part of getting to know their children. On the other, however, it can also be stressful, as it leads to a number of struggles. For example, one common struggle that many parents face and that isn’t commonly considered in advance is making children comfortable with visits to the dentist. It can be no easy task getting a young child to be okay with the idea of going to a strange office and letting a strange man or woman poke around in his or her mouth with metal instruments and rubber-gloved fingers. Indeed, many young children find the experience frightening, and some dental procedures can be a bit painful at times. So, how do you go about finding a dentist that your children will be comfortable with? Here are a few tips.

To begin with, your first step should always be to locate a few dentists in your area, so that you have a starting point. This is easy enough – in fact, websites like Topdentists.com actually have simple search engines designed specifically for this purpose. At such websites, you can simply type in your city or region, and a number of professional dentists who practice near you should pop up. This will give you the names you need to start looking into which dentist may be best for your children. If you wish to find out a bit more about the dentists whose names you’ve found, before actually meeting them or talking to them, you can always do a bit of online research. It is not uncommon for practicing doctors and dentists to have their own websites, and sometimes you can even be lucky enough to find some patient comments and/or reviews. Such things can be great indicators of how reliable and talented dentists are.

Once you have conducted your research and found a dentist or two you think you may be comfortable with, there is no harm in going with your child or children to meet him or her. Sitting down to talk with a dentist in a friendly, non-threatening setting can be a great way to allow young children to gain trust, and can ultimately lead to a strong dentist-patient relationship. There is of course never a guarantee that your child will be comfortable with dental care, as some people are simply bothered by procedures. However, this sort of careful selection of your dentist should at least improve the odds that your children are comfortable with having their teeth cared for.