Starting chores with your kids can seem overwhelming. But Allowing them to begin helping with daily tasks around your home can be extremely rewarding for them and you. Beginning somewhere between 3 and 4 years old is generally where we’ve started with the boys. Here are a few ideas and how we’ve implemented them in our home.
CHORE IDEAS
DUSTING
UNLOADING THE DISHWASHER
PUTTING AWAY TOYS
PICK UP BOOKS
TAKE OUT THE TRASH/RECYCLING
VACUUM
PUT AWAY FOLDED CLOTHES
FEED PETS
WATER PLANTS
AFTER DINNER CHORES: HELP CLEAR THE TABLE, WIPE PLACEMATS
TEACHING THE CHORE
When the boys have begun helping with chores, they’ve usually seen the chore performed from an early age (ex: unloading the dishwasher). While they’re familiar with it, that doesn’t mean they can do it independently. Before any of our boys have been able to master a chore independently, there’s always a period of time we’re working right along side them. This is also a great opportunity to have older siblings help younger ones.
This takes a LOT of time, but it’s worth it! It’s going to slow you down at first, but it’s so helpful once they master a chore.
HOW OFTEN DO THEY DO CHORES?
This depends on the chore. If it’s helping clean the bathrooms (spray bottles are your friend here) vacuuming, or another big chore, those may be done once a week or every other week. Picking up toys, helping put away their clothes, and participating with the after dinner clean up are all things that happen daily.
Age 3-4 is when we begin letting them pick a popsicle stick from the stack that are labeled with after-dinner chores. We have six sticks, each with a different chore written on them. Each of the oldest three blindly picks two sticks. This helps spread the chores around and also does away with keeping track of squabbling over whose turn it is to do a certain chore.
We’re always telling the boys we work as a team. If we’re all working together and helping things get done much faster so we can move on to something more fun! And one of us is right beside them helping with whatever they’ve chosen.
Beyond that, we want them to learn the value of helping in our home and taking care of it. We want them to leave our home one day equipped to clean and do tasks not only for themselves but their future families as well.
