I have read many articles on the benefits of children having chores from a young age. I had chores from an early age, and while I never really grew to love dusting and cleaning the bathroom, I certainly learned a few things about responsibility and doing your best despite not enjoying the task. Because chores were ever present in my life for as long as I can remember, every time I read an article touting the benefits of starting chores at a young age, I would immediately feel guilty because my young children basically had a pretty cushy life in our home. While we required them to pick up toys and put their dirty clothes in the hamper, we didn’t expect them to do regular chores inside of our home.
Earlier this year, when my boys were 5 and 6, they began asking for an allowance so that they would have the regular opportunity to earn a little income and add to their Christmas and birthday money to purchase some larger Lego sets. This was exactly the push my husband and I needed to start implementing daily chores in our home. While we discussed with them that they are an important part of the family and chores are their contribution to taking care of our home, they would have the opportunity to earn an allowance by doing a few more chores each day. My husband and I discussed some chores that we felt were age appropriate and helpful. I didn’t want to assign tasks to them that would take me longer to redo than to do myself in the first place!
After checking out some online suggestions, we brainstormed some ideas that we assigned to each boy at least a day a week. Our list has changed several times in the short time we have implemented our chores. Our list includes:
- Take the trash/recycling out to the curb
- Empty silverware from dishwasher
- Clean bathroom sink
- Vacuum living room, halls, and bedroom
- Clean bathroom mirror
- Water the garden
- Dust living room
- Pick up living room
- Keep their rooms picked up and dirty clothes in the hamper
We hope to accomplish a few things with starting up chores in our home.
Increased responsibility is a true benefit to chores. We want the boys to take a sense of pride in keeping our home well taken care of. When they are partially responsible for the effort, they have already grown to initiate taking care of their belongings. We are still a work in progress in this area, but moving toward a common goal of taking responsibility for our things is a win in my book!
Contributing to our family. We are working to help our children understand that we count on them to do their part around our home, and we want them to learn how to be counted on and to count on us to do our part. Their daily chores are important to keeping our household running, and we help them feel pride in doing the little things that matter.
Learn to manage the money that they earn. There is some controversy about whether children should get paid for chores. After several long discussions and much thought, we established some very intentional guidelines for our chores and money the boys earn. Some chores are daily chores that they have to do (picking up after themselves, cleaning up messes they make, unloading the dishwasher, etc.) These daily chores are non-negotiables. They do not get paid their allowance money for meeting our minimum expectations. They have the chance to earn allowance money when they complete the chores that go above and beyond. The benefits of budgeting is another post for another day, but we are grateful our children are learning that the money they are earning from going above and beyond was earned through hard work and they are in turn, becoming more thoughtful about how they spend their money.
Work on chores together. We have established a chore routine during the school year where the boys begin their chores and complete reading time immediately after getting home from school. They work on chores while I work on dinner and they all see that we all have our part. During the summer, they have decided to get their chores done right away so they can enjoy some extra fun activities for the day.
Satisfaction in doing hard work. One of the most satisfying chores has been digging a garden and taking care of it. Both of my children have grown to love watching their hard work pay off in an abundance of watermelon.
It has been a little extra work to establish this new expectation of chores in our family, but our boys have already gotten more aware of their personal responsibilities in contributing to our household, and for that I am grateful.
At what age did your children begin chores?
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The best way I’ve found to motivate kids to do chores is to have them first watch the video “Chore Day” by Three Beat Slide (available for free on YouTube). The video humorously covers most common household tasks such as doing the laundry, dusting shelves, putting toys away, vacuuming, doing the dishes, etc., and is guaranteed to put a smile on their face (and yours too)! You may even find yourself singing their song as you do your own chores!
I’ll check it out! Thanks!