6 Reasons to Give Kids Chores
Adds to category 1 behaviors that you can praise/positively reinforce - feels good for you and your kids = win-win!
Builds life skills
Builds your child’s confidence and competence
Giving is the best feeling there is! Teach this to your kids early and it will reap infinite rewards in your children’s future lives.
Takes work off your plate as a busy parent
They like it (really!)
Let’s take these one at a time.
First, kids doing tasks around the house is a behavior parents like and want to see more of. That makes chores “category 1” behaviors, as I outlined in my last video and blog about influencing our kids’ behavior. Category 1 behaviors are behaviors we like and want to see more often. The best part of creating opportunities for your children to engage in category 1 behaviors is that it gives you more opportunities to praise and positively reinforce those behaviors. This will feel good for you and your kids, so it’s win-win!
Teaching kids to:
-sweep the floor
-sort, wash, dry, fold, or put away laundry
-match up the socks from the laundry (great for little kids!)
-vacuum
-water house plants
-organize drawers
-go through old things to make a donation box
-put away dishes; dry dishes; clean dishes (why are there always so many dishes?!?)
-take out the trash
-walk the dog(s)
-pick up dog poop/clean a litter box/clean a hamster cage/clean a bird cage
-feed pet(s), water pet(s)
-mow the lawn
-shovel snow
-rake leaves
-pick up sticks
-make the bed
-clean a tub
-clean a toilet
-clean a sink
-clean a mirror
-dust the tables
-put the pillows back on the sofa
-take out the trash/recycling
I’ll bet you can imagine so many more things that you do everyday, and you probably do them pretty automatically now. But, just think - at one point you didn’t know how to do any of them! By teaching our kids to do all these things when they’re young and making these skills even a little fun or competitive, we are preparing them for life.
When you start giving your kids chores and inviting their participation in daily life, you’ll see their confidence grow. They’ll want to do more over time, and you may even see them competing for who has more responsibilities. (I swear, this just happened in my house between my two kids, and I was doing a happy dance in my head!)
Inviting your children to participate in the household functioning by having responsibilities allows them to have a clearly defined way to give to the family as a whole. Giving is the best feeling, far better than receiving, but this isn’t always obvious to kids. The wonderful feeling that comes from giving has to be experienced to be understood. Let them have that experience! Give them stewardship of a task, and let them grow into masters of that task (but make it a gift by offering it to them with your support, understanding it will take some time, and many iterations of doing it not so well before it’s perfect). By doing so, you grant them the gift of being able to feel proud of the way they contribute to your family. You’ll have an opportunity to brag about them to others, and inflate their self esteem in doing so.
Another obvious benefit to teaching your kids how to do tasks around the house and expecting their contribution is that your parental “to do” list becomes shorter as the years go by. How amazing is that?!
Last, but certainly not least, your kids will like the end result of having responsibilities entrusted to them. So long as your implement chores in an age-appropriate manner, and support your kids as they get used to the responsibility and learn how to do it well, and trust them to do it, you’re building tons of equity in your trust bank account with them, and building their confidence and self esteem as well. They will feel so good to be able to give to you, just wait and see!
When implementing these chores, try the following:
-Let your child know they are maturing and you notice they’re more responsible. As a result you feel they’re ready to take own ownership of some (more?) household tasks
-Give them three age appropriate chore options to choose from, and ask them which one they’d like to do from now on
-Set your expectations clearly. How often does the task need to be completed? What is the goal outcome? Do the chore with your child the first few times to show them how you do it. Next, have them do it for you to show how they’ll do it - let them choose their own process. As long as the outcome is what you asked for, don’t nitpick about HOW they do their chore. Finally, ask them if they’re ready to do it on their own, and praise, praise, praise when they do!
