Family Economy

We attended your 3 day class and have begun implementing all the meetings and putting together a family standard and family economy. For the first time in our parenting journey, my husband and I are working together on all of this and with our youth and he is completely on board. He actually had written 2 pages of things on his mind to discuss with me before the class and you supported most of them! He felt so validated. It was a complete GOD thing. No one but God could have given him the time to type his thoughts and have you mirror them so perfectly! And no one but God and the class could have had me not take it personally when we had our couple meeting! LOL

Question has to do with rights vs. privileges and family economy. I searched the archives most of the day and I cannot find any information on having youth earn privileges for completing daily tasks. We do homeschool our 4 youth who are 8-15 (the 11 month old does not participate in this). We were thinking that if they: 1) complete their school 2) do their chores/ consequences 3) complete hygiene requirements, and 4) complete their music and sports assignments for the day then, they will earn a check mark. They can redeem the check marks for privileges like a movie night, gliding lessons, a new kindle book, 3D printing time, craft time, etc. But now I am questioning the wisdom in this since I cannot find you speaking of this in any of your calls. What are your thoughts? How do you motivate a youth to do these 4 tasks every day. We would like to get them to not think that so many privileges are rights and have them earn some of these privileges. They spend a lot of time a day on their kindles and listening to audiobooks and printing on their 3D printer and iPad messaging friends or drawing on the iPad that it often keeps them from completing the tasks above or engaging with family. We want more family unity. Not more time being alone. When I told one youth today, "I need you to give me the iPhone". He said, "I'm just READING!" I am used thinking all reading is created equal because they read books the same way, but he did not do his school for hours while reading on the kindle app. So I am wondering if this is a privilege that needs to be earned? We are realizing our kids have way too much access to privileges and we need to back track and get them to complete the basics. What are your thoughts on these privileges and establishing a reward system based on the things that motivate each child?