There’s a lot of value in encouraging your kids to help out with chores around the house.
It’ll teach them responsibilities and the importance of contributing, and plus, it’ll just make your life easier — it’s much easier (or it should be, anyway) to take care of all your tasks when you have one or two little helpers by your side.
Alas, while you might be aware of all the benefits of having your kids help out, they probably won’t be quite as eager.
After all, children would rather be playing with their toys than sweeping the floor.
So it can take a little work getting your children involved with domestic chores. By taking our tips below, you can make it more likely that they’ll help out without throwing a tantrum.
And who knows, they might even look forward to completing their assigned tasks!
Start Simple
You might like it if your child could handle the responsibility of getting your bathroom into sparkling clean condition, but that’s not a realistic aspiration.
When you’re first introducing your children to the concept of domestic chores, it’s best to start simple.
They can start by taking clothes out of the dryer, for example, or perhaps even something as straightforward as turning the lights off before they go to bed.
What you choose will depend on the age of the child, but the general goal is to make them comfortable with the idea of helping out.
Progressively Increase Responsibilities
Once your child has shown that they can help out in minuscule ways, you’ll want to look at steadily increasing the size of their responsibilities. If they’ve mastered the art of putting their dirty clothes in the washing basket, then maybe it’s time to ask them to lay the table or water the plants.
As they grow older, you can ask them to take out the trash, keep their bedroom tidy, or vacuum the home.
You can gauge when they’re ready based on how well they’ve performed the previous task.
You can also use this sheet, which outlines what chores a child should be doing depending on their age, as a reference point.
Make It Routine
You can’t expect your child to be happy about helping out with chores if your requests always come out of the blue. It’s best to make helping out with chores simply part of the routine.
For example, you could set aside an hour on Sunday morning to do chores.
That won’t take up too much of their time, they’ll know exactly when to expect that they’ll be “busy,” and it’ll just normalize the concept.
On the other hand, if you drop your “you need to do chores now” request when they’re in the middle of playtime, then you have to accept that they’ll be a little less than thrilled.
Make it Fun
Are chores inherently fun? No, they are not. Can they be fun? Absolutely! Your children will be much more enthusiastic about helping to keep your property in good condition if there’s an element of fun involved.
As a starting point for responsibility, why not consider getting a battery powered snow blower?
They may be unable to operate the device themselves, but they’ll sure love seeing it in action — plus, there’ll be other snow-related chores they can help with at the same time.
For chores that take place inside your home, consider putting on fun music and dancing around while you take care of business.
Your children will be having so much fun that they forget that what they’re doing is “work.”
Include Everyone In The Household
OK, well you maybe don’t have to include everyone. If there’s a new baby in your family, then just let them be a baby for a while — they don’t need to help with the cleaning up! But everyone else should.
Your child will be much more likely to accept their responsibilities if they don’t have the power to say but why doesn’t X have to help?
And they would be making a fair point. Introducing your child to chores is a way to demonstrate that everyone in the household has to contribute towards making a loving home — but that argument will only work if everyone genuinely is contributing.
Avoid Assigning Chores As Punishment
You can see why parents use chores as a punishment (or as a threat of punishment).
As we said above, most people have a pretty negative view of domestic chores, so no one wants to be lumped with an additional task just because they’ve acted up.
The problem with this approach is that it categorizes chores as a negative activity, which will make it more likely that the child will reject the whole concept.
They’re unlikely to begrudgingly complete a chore because they’ve been punished, and then excitedly complete a chore when they haven’t done anything wrong.
Stay Away From Perfection
Contrary to widespread belief, many children actually want to help out in the household in one way or another. Why? Because they’ll want to make you happy!
As such, it’s best to resist offering any criticism relating to the standard of the job they’ve done. They might not have tidied their room to your standards, but they still made an effort.
A little bit of positive encouragement is the way to go.
Be A Positive Force
Finally, remember that your children are going to pick up a lot about domestic chores just by observing your own attitude and approach to the work.
If you’re complaining or clearly having a miserable time when you’re mopping the floor, then it’s likely that your kids will, too.
It would take a pretty special child to feel great about cleaning if all they’ve seen is their parents huffing and puffing when they’re doing it!
So try to be a positive force when cleaning. In fact, try to be a positive force in everything you do — there are a lot of less-than-enjoyable aspects of life, but they become a lot more manageable if you have a positive attitude.