chores and your child: why, what, when & how

Are you surprised when your child just smiles sweetly and ignores you, or worse, answers with “it’s not my job”, when asked to clean his room or pour water in the dog’s bowl? Chores are not something we naturally know how to do when we are born; they are learned behaviors. And teaching your child to do his chores, just like teaching him any new behavior, can be easy when certain principles are followed.

Sure, it would be nice for you when your child helps you with the household chores. But besides the advantage of divide-and-conquering your to-do list amongst the members of your household, chores are invaluable to the healthy development of your child.

why should your child have chores?

The ultimate goal of any developmental stage in your child’s life is independence; in fact, the purpose of childhood is learning to become an adult. If you think about it, anything your child is learning to do, for and by himself, is getting him one step closer to adulthood. Chores will teach him good habits, work ethics, personal hygiene, and tidiness, in short, essential skills to becoming an independent adult.

Chores will also increase your child’s confidence; the more able he is to do things on his own, the better for his self-esteem (see Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt). He will also feel fulfilled because he is needed (at least for some things), which goes even beyond one of the biggest motivators for children, parental approval, and taps into our human need to be needed (and validated). And finally, through learning to value his own work, he will begin to value the work of others, and not take what they do (for him) for granted, essentially learning reciprocation, an invaluable social skill.

The bottom line is that as he grows older, your child will need to do chores (and eventually a formal type of work), and the sooner you teach him how, the easier it will be both for you and for him.

how do you implement chores with your child?

Whether you’ve already started or are about to start implementing chores for your child, please remember that acquisition of behavior is fastest/easiest when a newly learned behavior is reinforced right away. So lavishing him with praise as soon as the chore is done and/or delivering on that promised reward immediately afterwards, is the best way to establish the new behavior of doing chores around the house.

Here’s some dos and don’ts to take into consideration:

do: have a set time of the day for the chore

For example “fill the dog’s bowl every morning after breakfast”. There are two reasons for this: 1) it makes remembering the chore easier because it is tied to another element (time) and activity (breakfast) and 2) it will be easier for you to enforce the completion of the chore, because you too will also have a set time to expect it to be done. Try to schedule chores early in the day, before your child gets engrossed in a game or gets too tired.

don’t punish him if he doesn’t do his chores

Instead, don’t deliver the reward. If you punish him, you will pair the chore with a negative experience (at the beginning, he may already not feel too terribly excited about the chore). What you can do instead, is present it as a choice, at least at the beginning: you work then you get your reward; if you don’t want to work, you will simply not get your reward. This will help him assert control over his choice and not see it as a mandatory activity, which may elicit feelings of rebellion or resistance. Also, and this goes without saying, do NOT give him the promised reward UNTIL the chore is done.

do: have a system of reward in place ahead of time

The rule of thumb is to reward immediately at first and then periodically with a predefined reinforcement (favorite activity, goodie, or food item). Praise is one of the most immediate reinforcers, it may even act as a signal for the delayed reinforcement, if you cannot deliver one right away (“great job! you’ve just earned yourself an ice cream, and I’ll be giving it to you as soon as I finish cleaning this”) Remember that to encourage consistency, you must lead by example; the more consistently you reward/reinforce your child’s behavior, the smoother the learning.

don’t pair chores to money/allowance

Paying your child for the chores sends the message that you owe him for his work. In the family unit, all members of the family work towards a common goal (cook, clean, tidy up) and each contributes his or her fair share, by age and by ability. Also, if you start paying him for the chores with his allowance, he will be more inclined to refuse to do them when he doesn’t need the money. Reward him? Yes, but not with money. {More on allowances coming soon in a separate blog post}.

do: discuss the chores ahead of time

Present the activity as him helping you and contributing his share to the household. Emphasize the positive (“it helps a lot when you pick up your toys from the living room”) and take the time to explain the importance of each chore. Even though you need to be firm about them (i.e. you absolutely expect him to do what he is assigned), take the time to discuss the chores ahead of time and let him come up with some of his own for the list – he will be more likely to do them because he will feel more invested when it’s his idea.

don’t curb his enthusiasm

If he does more than he is asked (lucky you!), acknowledge his initiative and praise his effort lavishly (even if he doesn’t do it well at the beginning) – he will be more likely to volunteer to do more things around the house (the catch them behaving trick). Don’t dismiss it as “it’s wasn’t your job” or “you didn’t have to do that”, instead praise him and reward him for his initiative with “I like how you thought to do this, and I think you did a great job for a first timer”. If he wants to copy you and do tasks that he is not quite ready for, you can always start him on the easy first few steps (e.g. just rinse the dishes, instead of washing and drying them). Gentle, constructive instructions, as opposed to criticism, will help him better navigate the Initiative vs. Guilt stage of his development.

do: start small – baby steps

Start out by doing his chores with him. It’s a great way to demonstrate how it’s done (teaching through modeling, not just through verbal instruction) and challenge him to try them out himself (“do you think you’re big enough to do this?”). Gradually decrease your involvement (shaping the behavior with less and less prompting), for example start and finish with him, but let him do the middle part alone. Next, just supervise the finishing of it, and so on. By the same token, start out with only one or two chores for him to do (and easier for him to remember) then gradually build from there. You don’t want to frustrate him from the get go. So if a task is too complex, break it down to small, easy pieces and assign it to him in small increments.

don’t expect perfection from the get go

Think of it as a learning curve. At first, just have him go through the motions, praise him with general terms “nicely done”. If you have to redo something, explain why (“this is how I fold the sheet, that’s how grandma taught me, and now I’m teaching you because you’re getting older and this is a big-person job”). Praise improvement, until he gets it. Then surprise him with an extra reward for doing it really well. See how your rewarding behavior is being shaped as well?

do: give him a choice

First off, don’t ask, tell. If you ask “would you like to clean your room now?” you might not like the answer. Instead tell him “time to clean your room”. Better yet, give him two choices and ask him to pick one “which one do you want to do first? help with the trash or sort the recycling?”; he will feel in control and more likely to comply with the request than if told to do it. Don’t worry, he is not sophisticated enough at this age-range to come back to you with a “neither, I’d rather watch TV”. But if he is, you can just remind them that that’s the only way to earn his reward

don’t do for him what he is capable of doing it for himself

Help him? Yes. Expediting the process by doing it yourself? Not a good idea. If you give him a chore them wind up doing it yourself because it is simply faster for you, you are signaling to him that you are not serious about your delegation of the task, which implies that you don’t trust him with it or that he is off the hook. Mean what you say, even if it is hard sometimes to let go. Your patience will soon be rewarded.

the when and how of chores

The sooner you start implementing chores the better: it’s a lot easier to teach a new behavior without having to undo another learned behavior. So you can start with simple, baby chores fairly early, as soon as your child is mobile and able to follow simple instructions. You can do all of the above, on a smaller scale, for a younger child. Don’t dismiss the discussion part though, because, even if you don’t think your child fully grasps the concept, he is still listening to you and understanding it better with each repetition.

Here are some chore ideas, by age/stage:

early childhood (1 to 3 years)

• Pick up toys
• Put trash in the bin
• Take items (that he can carry and walk with) from one room to the other
• Carry one item and “be in charge of it” during a shopping trip, to and from the car (it could be a personal item, like a teddy bear or a blanket, or a separately bagged small grocery item)
• Put items of clothing in the hamper
• Hand clothes to you from the dryer
• Match socks (great for learning patterns, colors, and the concept of same and different)
• Help set napkins on the table (precursor to setting the table with dishes and cups)

preschool years (4 to 6 years)

• Put away belongings in their appropriate bins, drawers and closets (keep his own room tidy)
• Make the bed
• Set and clear the table
• Dry dishes
• Sort clothes for the laundry and out of the dryer
• Hang clothes on hangers
• Feed pets
• Water plants
• Wash vegetables and fruits, mash food items, and get specific ingredients for meal preparation
• Help measure and pour ingredients, stir and mix for meal preparation
• Dust
• Empty wastebaskets, gather the trash to be taken out
• Wipe counters
• Bring in the mail
• Help with yardwork
• Carry groceries and help put them away
• Entertain a younger sibling for a short period of time
• Pack own lunchbox with already prepared/packaged items
• Help wash the car

How do you handle chores with your child? What kind of chores do you have him/her do?