Are Your Children Actually Tired of Doing Household Chores?

The value of children learning responsibilities – Chores vs. Household Responsibilities

As children, my brothers and I grew up doing household chores. I really don’t remember what age I was when I started doing chores. I also don’t remember getting paid a consistent allowance. But I have no doubt that I was already doing age appropriate chores by the time I was seven. My first memory of doing any sort of chores was washing dishes around the ages of six or seven. I also remember helping myself to my own cereal in the mornings around that same age. Growing up, my brothers and I were expected to do a wide variety of chores around the house on a regular basis. We did table chores, kitchen clean up , dusting, vacuuming, cleaning our bathroom, pulling weeds in the backyard, picking berries from our garden, cleaning and organizing the garage, watering the lawn, folding laundry, and more.

Of course we complained about them many times over. However, we also grew up knowing that if we lived in that house and contributed to the messes, (and we definitely did), then we also needed to contribute our fair share of help.

You may be wondering where I am going with my story of my own childhood chores.

First, I want to talk about how valuable it is for children to learn to help out around the house and take care of their responsibilities. Second, I want to provide a list of some age appropriate chores for your own children. This list, below, can be utilized as a foundation for you as you begin to implement age appropriate household responsibilities for you children in your own home.

Why Household Chores are Important

Now, I do understand that creating and maintaining a comfortable home looks and means different things to different families. For us, keeping a clean and ‘relatively’ tidy home is important for our comfort. So as a family, we take care to ensure, (with some flexibility), our home is comfortable to our standards. Therefore, it is important to us that our son contributes to age-appropriate household responsibilities.

Below I share exactly what we have been doing, and when we started. But first, let me share a few of my own thoughts concerning the word chores.

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Chores vs. Household Responsibilities

Now, let’s talk briefly about word choice. The word, chore(s) is such a drag! In our family, we made a conscious choice to drop the word from our vocabulary. It just has a negative connotation. Often times, the moment the word is heard by a child, she immediately shuts down and determines NOT to comply. That is unless she is extrinsically motivated (meaning rewarded by something tangible, such as an allowance). By the way, I wrote another blog all about allowance. You can read that here.

Another bummer about chores is that only children do them As adults, we don’t typically use the word, chores. Instead, we say things like, “I have stuff to do,” or “I need to get a few things done around here.” Many times we just call the responsibility what it is-laundry, washing dishes, sweeping, taking out the trash. Thinking about that concept from a child’s perspective, it is so terribly unfair that kids have to do chores and adults don’t.

So, if we don’t call them chores in our family, what do we call them?

Ditching the Dirty Word

Instead of using the word, chore(s), we have chosen to adopt the phrase, household responsibilities, or simplified, responsibilities. The phrase encourages a sense of significance and belonging to a particular family and household. It reminds children that there are responsibilities, (not chores), and everyone must contribute to ensure the household runs smoothly.

When everyone contributes, everyone feels valued as an important part of the family. Check it out:

When a child completes his responsibilities to the family and household, he is rewarded intrinsically by a sense of accomplishment. He may feel that he is an important and valuable asset to the family. His contribution makes home comfortable so that everyone can enjoy it. He also knows that he is loving his family well by helping out. Finally, household responsibilities are things we all do- children, teenagers, parents, anyone else living in the home. When children see their older siblings and their parents all working together to make the home comfortable, they learn that household responsibilities are a normal part of everyday life. Even if it is a drag sometimes, they are often more compliant.

With all this in mind, we certainly cannot expect a baby, or even a toddler to contribute much. That is why I have shared the when, and the what of how we started implementing household responsibilities in our family.

Making Household Responsibilities Official

How old was our son when he started contributing to the household responsibilities?

Even though he was very eagerly doing a few things early on, we waited until our son was three to start officially including him in the household responsibilities. We made it official by starting with something that should naturally be his responsibility- cleaning up his own toys. In the first few months after his third birthday, he started cleaning up his own toys.

After a few months, we began to introduce more responsibilities, little by little. Our strategy is to introduce and teach him one responsibility at a time. We give him time to establish a habit around completing it daily for a few months. Then we introduce a new one. He is four now, and he currently has six age-appropriate responsibilities. They are: 1) cleaning up his own toys, 2) feeding and watering our cat, 3) cleaning up his own spot at the table, which includes putting his dish in the sink, putting his milk in the fridge, and wiping his place clean with the towel, 4) helping to fold napkins, washcloths, and hand towels, 5) checking the mail with our assistance as needed, 6) helping dad set the table for dinner, which includes setting out placemats, utensils and napkins.

Below I have provided a more extensive list. Take a look below to see what your toddler and preschooler can begin doing to help out with the household responsibilities.

Age Appropriate Responsibilities for Toddlers & Preschoolers

Other age-appropriate children household chores for toddlers and preschoolers (ages 2-5) include:

1. Wiping kitchen chairs and stools
2. Washing counter tops and tabletops
3. Helping to wash produce for dinner prep
4. Helping to put groceries away if groceries are at an appropriate height
5. Unloading and putting away utensils from dishwasher
6. Making their own bed
7. Cleaning their bathroom sink with safe and appropriate cleaning solutions, such as wipes
8. Watering plants in and outside
9. Vacuuming spills with hand-held vacuum
10. Putting their own dirty clothes in the hamper and sorting them between lights, darks, towels, etc.
11. Transferring clothes from the washer to the dryer
12. Dusting, vacuuming, sweeping
13. Emptying small household trash cans such as their own bathroom trash can
14. Preparing their own simple breakfasts and/or lunches

Are Your Children Actually Tired of Doing Household Chores?