With my nine-year-old's recent birthday, I wanted to give her a "quest" to fulfill this year, to help build her character. I may start doing this for all of my children on their birthdays (maybe I'll even do one for myself--I'm turning 40 this year!).
Since my daughter turned nine, I decided to give her nine tasks to complete over the coming year. Here are some examples of a few of them:
- Master Your Bedroom (basically spring-cleaning and reorganizing her bedroom, getting rid of stuff, etc.)
- Learn What It Means to Walk In Someone Else's Shoes (I want her to learn this skill and venture out of her own world)
- Perform an Act of Service for Someone Every Week (I want her to keep track and do fifty acts of service this year)
- Plant Your Own Garden This Year (I'll give her a plot)
Other tasks include writing Granny five letters this year, helping me give her bedroom a makeover, finish reading her list of homeschool books for the year, etc. With each task, I gave specific directions, and a little box for her to check when she accomplishes that task. She's allowed to ask for help from me or friends and siblings on any of the tasks.
She likes the idea of the quest, but is not very motivated to work on the tasks. So here are several motivational options I've given her. She chose number three.
- When all tasks are completed, she will receive one final birthday gift.
- Next birthday, she will receive as many gifts as tasks she completed. So if she did not do any of the tasks, she would receive no gifts from her parents. Alternatively, if she got them all done, she'd get nine gifts.
- Every time she completes a task, I will buy her a Bubble Tea.
Of course, for number three, you could insert any inexpensive reward that would motivate your own child.
So we'll see how this works out. I've already thought of several tasks I could put on my own list of forty things to accomplish in the coming year! I don't know if I'll do this for my younger children, but I think age nine is a good age to start.