How do you spread the joy, er… responsibility, of dishwasher unloading at your house?
Because we can go in spells of running the dishwasher a lot or very little, I was struggling with finding the best way to share the joy of dishwasher unloading among all my sweet children.
My kids are 8- 12 years old. Also, I felt it was right to add our foreign exchange daughter back in the mix while she was visiting this summer. She’s 20 now. I didn’t think assigning by week would be fair, since things can be pretty unpredictable and we might run the dishwasher dramatically less one week over the next, and so neither did assignment by set day.
To solve this, I took out a piece of paper and a marker and listed each child’s name several times, rotating through the list until I ran out of room. (I know… VERY high tech, right?)
As each child unloads, she crosses his or her name off. If she forgets to cross her name off, she unloads again.
You might notice in my picture up there that Natalie’s name is crossed off a few times in advance and replaced with Jack’s. Jack got in trouble for doing something inconsiderate to Natalie so I replaced her name with his for a few rotations. Oh– and Shari is back in Germany, so her name is crossed off in advance, too.
This is rather simple, and has really been working for us lately. Would it work in your house?
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