So for our regular daily routine and assigned jobs that the children do every day, I found that I was doing a lot of reminding as those jobs sometimes got forgotten or done late, and it was causing problems in our daily routine (for example, one job is to unload the dishwasher before breakfast so we can put the dirty dishes directly in so that dishes don't pile up in the sink).
So I was trying to think about it in a TSG way, and thought that was happening (either me reminding or the kids not doing jobs on time) because we didn't have an official checkback expectation for those routine daily jobs.
So we talked about it and decided that they needed to check back by a certain time or they earned an extra chore, and I created a "Daily Check-ins" chart for them to either mark off, or they can also report to me in person. That was working well for a while but now is feeling a little cumbersome for me, and since my kids at home are 11-17 y/o, it might feel a bit juvenile especially for the older kids.
Do you have any suggestions for maintaining consistency with my younger kids with the check backs, while allowing the older kids to have some flexibility with the check back?
I guess I'm wondering this: If an older child cheerfully does a routine job on time without telling me they completed it (because it's a routine daily thing), does that mean they earn an extra chore (since that would technically not be following an instruction since the check back is the final step to following instructions)?
Or is there some flexibility with an older child that the expectation is just that they do the jobs and as long as the jobs are done in a timely fashion without an official "Mother I did it" report, then all is good? And then only if I notice the job isn't done or if it was done too late, THEN there's an extra chore?
I know this may seem trivial but it's hard for me to reconcile how to be consistent with my younger children in maintaining the general TSG structure and expectations, while also allowing older children to be responsible and flexible in how they go about doing what is expected of them.