Accountable Kids Program

One of the biggest struggles we face as parents is teaching our kids how to be responsible. Teaching them the right attitude about chores and money and helping others seems to be a very tough task. But I have found a program that has transformed my homelife!! It's called, Accountable Kids, by Scott and Traci Heaton (http://www.accountablekids.com/).

I bought the program at our local homeschool convention back in June. The program consists of a book, a quickstart CD, and wooden pegboards with lots of different chore tickets, etc.. to put on them.

The idea of this program (in a nutshell, and really you need to read the book to fully understand it all!) is that each child has their own pegboard, placed in a prominent place in your house. You put the responsibility reminder cards onto their boards. These reminder cards are color coded according to the time of day in which they need be completed(isn't it brilliant!). There are 3 times, morning, day, and night. As the child finishes a task, they move the reminder card onto the finished peg. You, as the parent, are to keep an eye on the boards because they need to finish the task with the right attitude, and before the allotted time is up. If they complete all of their morning tasks, they then receive 1 ticket.

The reward tickets can be handled many ways. At our house, each ticket gives them 30 minutes of either TV, computer time, or video gaming (at the appropriate time of day). There are also extra chores that they can do to earn more tickets (you also choose what the extra can be). Then there are chores that earn money. But, they don't receive the money until the weekly family meeting, when they turn in their money ticket for dollars. This teaches them patience.

Another important part of the program is the behavior card. They earn these for showing good behavior, you know, going above and beyond what is expected to be kind or helpful.

Then there is the privilege pass. This is earned by eliminating a specific repeated negative behavior that you have noticed in your child. You point it out and suggest ways to overcome it, then if they consistently overcome it they earn this pass. When you have your weekly family meeting you praise that child's ability to overcome named issue. It's a great way to use positive reinforcement!

Then there is the discipline side of the program. If they are showing a bad attitude, or any other specified negative actions, they lose a ticket (or 2). This really hurts because it will take away privileges.

I'll end with a quick testimony. My son is easily distracted. I've tried every other chore thing out there to get him to do the most basic of things, like make his bed, and brush his teeth. Every day it's been the same thing, me nagging him until he does them. Until Accountable Kids. Since day 1 I have NOT had to remind him to do any of these things!!! And he's also doing his daily and weekly chores in a timely manner, with a good attitude!!

I hope this program can help you out if you are struggling with every day tasks. Let me know if you try it out!