I would not expect the BM to use the same chore chart. I would pay him the allowance and not expect the BM to do that.

I assign chores to my child, but don't give him an allowance. Everybody is different when it comes to that sort of thing.

The issue DH and I have is that it doesn't seem like a good lesson to pay SS the $5/week on the weeks he is only with us for 2 nights. The lesson we are trying to instill with the kids here is that they work/contribute to the household, and then receive a weekly allowance in exchange for their contributions.

One idea DH had was to pay PER chore. (Example--.25 for making the bed, .25 for setting the table, etc.) But that seems so complicated to me...not sure HOW we would keep track of who did what and when!

We also thought it would be really nice for SS to see that BM and DH are on the same page with this issue.

My kids all do chores but also do not get paid. But paying a child to do chores can help with instilling good money management.

So with that said maybe you could think of a daily pay rate for chores. Maybe each day of completed chores is worth 50 cents. That way it is easier to keep track of than deciding what each chore is worth. And there is a daily reward so it won't affect when sd is gone, and it won't be unfair to dd.

I would not ask bm to do the same thing. Two different households, and I have learned you can only control what goes on in your household. Depending on bm to uphold a chore schedule will only cause drama and end in disaster!

If you start paying the children for doing chores, they will expect to be paid for anything they do around the house. They also have the option of not doing the chores and foregoing the pay. BTDT.
I'd suggest the chores are done as "part of living in a house, we all have to help it run smoothly" because they will need to learn to do this as a habit for when they eventually move out to their own home. The allowance can be given on a similar basis, "we all share". We pegged allowance at about the price of two icecreams, not quite enough for a cinema ticket, to encourage saving and budgeting.

I'm also in the "don't pay kids to do chores" camp.
Although I do agree that kids should have to earn their allowance.

What if the $5 was split to 70 cents a day, and for each day you have him, he gets the 70 cents... But the "earning" is having a good attitude and being nice, not doing the chores?
I just am not keen on chores for dollars...

With SD, since she is gone EOW from Thursday night to Sunday, we pay allowance EOW Wednesday for 2 weeks time. That way we don't have to deal with the here more one week then another issue.

We had this situation with my stepdaughter, so we made a chart with seven colums, and when the whole thing gets filled up, the kids get their allowance. On our chart we have make your bed, clean up your stuff, and a "family chore" category. Then we have a list of family chores for the children to choose from, such as laundry, vacuuming, dusting, litter box, bathrooms.

Also, we have a section where we write down any misbehaviors which they did not correct after a warning. All kids get their age for their allowance...5 yo get $5, 9 yo get $9, 10 yo gets $10, then we take off 25 cents for each misbehavior for the 5 yo and 50 cents for each misbehavior for the 9 and 10 yos.

SD did complain that she can't earn her allowance as quickly, but I just told her that her mom was more than welcome to give her an allowance when she's with her...that I didn't mind at all. As well, DDs 5 and 9 will spend the night at g'ma's occassionally and are not here to do chores or sometimes they just don't feel like it...no big...sometimes I don't "feel" like it either.

Seems to be working out well for us, and they have all stopped asking us to buy everything for them. Now they say, "Can I go get such and such with my allowance?" Behavior's better too since they want to get "ALL" of their allowance!!

I am another member of the no allowance brigade. Neither J nor my own parents paid us to do chores either. The choice of whether or not to do allowance is personal and tends to depend on whether or not the parents got allowance.

I'm with Ceph on the splitting up the $5 between days on the weeks he is only there two days. That seems to be the fairest way to go. I wouldn't waste my energy on expecting mom to follow a chore chart. It'll wind up causing more stress on you rather than instilling responsibility in the Stepkids. You can't force a person to run their home a certain way so don't even try.

What doodle said.

I'm inclined to agree with what Colleenoz wrote about not paying kids to do chores, and for the reasons she gave. But I also agree that it's a good idea to teach kids how to earn/manage money and in the Real World, you get paid when you do work. I disagree, Ceph, with paying kids for good attitudes, as I think this risks teaching kids to be phony for a prize, or conversely, to expect to 'get something' out of being nice. It's also very subjective, for both parent and child.

Helping with certain basic chores and maintaining a decent attitude should be constants. (This goes both ways: parents providing certain basic things and nice treatment of their children are also non-negotiable.)

Maybe have one group of basic expectations which are uncompensated, and another group of optional chores or achievements which will allow the kid to decide if s/he is willing to work for the extra reward. Getting an A+ or doing extra credit work at school, doing some extra chores on top of the basic ones, would earn the kid the "allowance" money. Depending on their ages and your philosophy, they could also have a "basic allowance" in general, not tied to any condition whatsoever, or they could only get money when they do the "extra" chores. But it does seem like there should be a distinction between those things that are done because every person is expected to do them unconditionally, and those things that are optional to work for.

In my household the point of the allowance is to learn how to manage money. Hence each child should receive money every week regardless of where he lives.

I am not a fan of tying allowances into how much a child contributes or how well a child behaves. There are consequences that could be assigned e.g. if a child does not pitch in with chores, there is less time for family fun. If a child misbehaves, a discussion and/or punishment appropriate to the behavior should ensure.

I kinda feel like your SS should get the full allowance on the weeks he is with you less. Its not your SS fault that he isnt there every day...If you dont want to pay him as much because he isnt there then I would do a pay by chore approach..list the chores for the week and what they pay If the kids dont do the chore than they dont get paid...
I dont pay for normal family duties though at my house..to me making your bed, putting your clothes in the hamper is something that just needs to happen..if they dont then they dont play till its done...to me a chore I would pay for would be something out of the regular routine that you require of your children.

I have a friend with kids about 10 years older than ours who tied her kids' allowances to chores. She said when her kids hit their teen years and had part-time jobs, they were happy to forego doing the chores and not get the allowance. For that reason, we decided not to tie our kids' allowances to chores.

We explained to our kids that our philosophy was that doing chores was part of being in a family. We gave our kids an allowance for spending money and explained that as being part of the family, too.

I loved it when we started giving our kids an allowance. Then instead of saying, "no, I won't buy you that", I could always say "Yes, you can have that - if you want to buy it yourself".

An allowance is a great tool for teaching kids how to handle money.

However, I know many parents who are very successful with having kids earn their allowance. I don't know any parents who tie an allowance to having a good attitude. I might have been willing to have my kids earn their allowance by doing chores, but I would not have my kids earn their allowance by having a good attitude.

But different strokes for different folks...