Beginning chores with a low bar of difficulty

Hello Nicholeen,

So I’ve been doing TSG now for a good number of months, but had continue to shy away from using chores as a consequence, especially with our 16-year-old son who has displayed oppositional tendencies and I have focused in the past primarily on removing technology privileges and phone apps. Through your feedback and support calls, I realized how important it was for me to begin using chores, despite my prior thinking that because we have someone who cleans the home Monday through Friday, they were very few of any chores to be done.

I created a list and have continued to try to add items to the list, and some of them are quite simple and don’t take a lot of time (like changing the water of the fishbowl, hosing the air conditioner filter, pressure washing around the pool in the backyard, or plunging a toilet that was clogged etc). I wanted to reduce the odds of getting opposition from our children, especially our oldest most challenging child, so I’ve begun doing them as one chore per consequence, and then a 2nd chore consequence which often don’t take more than one hour or so to complete. I’ve seen this as a good way to have our son accept consequences, and practice cooperation and following instructions while doing the chores. I must say, overall it seems to be pretty successful in accomplishing those goals and also become a form of bonding moment between him and I.

I wonder however if with continued repeat offenses for the same issues, the chores should either become more difficult or if I should lower my tolerances for what would be considered out of instructional control and lead to 24 hours loss of privileges? I guess I’m wondering if making the chores simple enough that it’s almost too difficult for our son to say he won’t do them, is better and should be maintained as a longer-term strategy versus slowly steadily creeping up the difficulty or length of time of chores, again especially for repeat offenses.

I really enjoyed the mentoring call we recently had and look forward to the next one, I’m not sure if you would recommend going deeper then on the typical behaviors and choices that we’ve encountered and having a transparent list of chores associated with each one? I know you’ve also mentioned the upcoming app, but in the meantime is there a way that I could get your input on what it looks like in our home to see if I can improve the way that I’m trying to implement chores in our home.

Thank you so much