My wife and I had this exact problem. Our daughter spent more and more time on the internet, playing games, and giving us more and more grief when asked to perform basic chores - but still "wanting" everything. I started looking around, because there must be "an app for that". And sure enough, there is an app that addresses that very challenge, and even better, its brilliant. An that app is You Rule Chores.
You Rule Chores is a wonderful, colorful and fun way to manage your child's chores, and allows them to earn points that can be redeemed for rewards. It's designed to be interactive, with your child being able to participate by earning and redeeming points.
It's simple to setup, and get started, and in less than five minutes you will have a list of chores defined that need to be completed regularly (you have complete freedom at determining the frequency). At the same time, your child can decide what rewards they want to cash those hard earned points in for, they even provide you predefined rewards to get you started (desert before food, game or computer time, or a trip to the mall, or staying up and extra hour, etc).
It supports multiple children, and you can even add your spouse to it, which my brother did for the fun of it! This is great because the kids are each represented by a bar graph showing points earned, and has the added benefit of creating a little competition among them - granted, a little less useful if you only have one child.
We noticed a drastic improvement in chores being completed, and most of all, an improvement in our child's appreciation of the value of things. "I want" has now become, "oh, wait, how many points was that" and they have something to work towards. It's become part of our just-before-bedtime routine, reviewing chores done in the day and awarding points.
I would recommend this to any parent that has an iPhone... it's fun, and you have little to lose trying it out.
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