Managers of their Chores

Steven and Teri Maxwell

Managers of Their Chores is a book packed with advice and wisdom about the how’s and why’s of implementing a chore system in your home.  It contains 20 chapters that cover areas such as the benefits of chores, attitudes toward chores, the Biblical basis for chores, making and implementing a chore system in your home, plus a handy appendix full of master forms, sample chore lists, and a step-by-step guide for putting your chore system together.

The first seven chapters discuss the many benefits of chores for the family and for the children, as well as what the Bible says about work and chores, and how the attitudes of all the family members toward chores plays a role in the success of a chore system in your home.  I felt that all of this information was very helpful, especially if you are tying to decide if chores or a chore system are something you want to implement in your home.  I had never looked at chores from a Biblical perspective before, but once I did, it really made me see the importance of kids contributing to the family.  The current and lifetime benefits of having children do chores as discussed by the authors is enough to make most parents put implementing chores or a chore system at the top of their priority list.

Chapter 8 is where the meat of the book starts.  This is when ChorePacks are introduced which is the “heart” of the system.

The book then moves on to offer encouragement to those that are “home-management challenged,” and then on to developing your chores system – developing a master chore list, making chore assignments, frequency of chores, scheduling chores and revising, safety considerations when assigning chores, implementation of the chore system, as well as rewards, consequences, evaluating completed chores, and troubleshooting,  There is also a chapter dedicated to preschoolers and chores.

The Appendix has a very helpful section called “Recommended Steps for Putting Your Chore System Together.”  The book offers so much information that this section is handy in that it’s kind of  a condensed version of the ‘how-to’ part of the book.