EP 57: On Children’s Chores

This week on the Loving Life at Home Podcast, we’re talking all about children’s chores. I’ve been fielding a lot of questions on this topic lately, and I realize I haven’t shared much about how we handle chores at our house, so today is the day! I hope you’ll listen in.

How we assign chores in our family

Episode transcript

Hello, Friend.

Welcome to episode 57 of Loving Life at Home. This week, we’re talking all about children’s chores.

I’ve been fielding a lot of questions on this topic lately, and I realize I haven’t shared much about how we handle chores at our house, so today is the day!

Kids will be heading back to school soon, or – if you homeschool like I do – perhaps they’ll be gathering for lessons around the kitchen table or hitting the books while lounging on couches and easy chairs in the house or on blankets spread under the trees outside.

Either way, I hope you’ll recognize household chores as a valuable part of their life skills education.

The fact is, few things do more for a child’s sense of confidence and responsibility than learning to do household chores thoroughly, consistently, cheerfully, and without being reminded. Our kids all realize that their contribution to family life is important. They know that we depend on them to help keep our home looking good and running smoothly. And they’ve learned to work hard, usually without complaining. This work ethic will serve them well when they are grown.

For our family, we grouped all chores into one of three categories:

1. Personal Chores

Those are the things the children do each day to keep their personal things in order, like making their beds, straightening their rooms, or folding and putting away their clean laundry.

The children have never gotten paid for doing such things, nor do we give them an allowance. They are simply expected to do them consistently and cheerfully, in gratitude for the privilege of living at home and to make sure it remains a tidy and pleasant place to live.

When the kids were all really young, we’d usually partner a preschooler with an older sibling, who would help make certain the little ones’ beds got made and clothes put away satisfactorily.

And, while we’re on the topic, we made these chores as easy as we could. I already talked about how we dealt with toys in Episode 53 when we discussed microsystems for home management. But I don’t think I addressed bed making at that time.

When our kids were little, we used just a fitted sheet and one top layer – either a quilt or a covered blanket or a comforter. So making the bed only entailed flapping that top layer out over the mattress so that it looked relatively smooth, then placing their pillow at the head of the bed.

It could literally be accomplished in about 20 seconds. So even if they were helping a toddler, both beds would look perfect in no more than a minute.

They like this method so much that most of them have kept that routine even as older teens and adults. In fact, the red cotton quilts my older boys have been sleeping under had gotten so threadbare that I replaced them recently, and when I got online to order new sheets to match, I asked if they wanted top sheets or extra blankets now that they’re older and might find a fully made bed more comfortable, but they all said no. They like the system they’re used to.

So, although I ordered sheet sets than included top sheets, I’m planning to just cut at least one of those up to make extra pillowcases, since those boys take after their Dad and all sleep with three or four pillows every night, and the extra-long twin sheet sets only came with one pillowcase each!

And, when it comes to clothes, I don’t care if they hang them up in closets or fold and put them in drawers, as long as the dirty clothes are deposited in the hamper and the clothes in their rooms are clean, sorted, and out of sight, I don’t try to micromanage how they handle putting clothes away.

In my own closet, all the hangers point the same direction and clothes are all organized by color and style, and in my drawers and my husband’s drawers, we fold and file T-shirts and underwear, rotating them from front to back or left to right as we wear them.

But I quickly realized that any effort I put into organizing most of my children’s clothes in similar fashion was misspent and would be undone in a matter of minutes the first time they changed clothes in the recently restocked closet.

I definitely do have some kids who file their folded clothes and organize everything in rainbow order, but that really has to come from inside. So I don’t try to force it on everyone.

The only thing we are really a little OCD about in terms of family laundry is our stance that we never stash dirty clothes in the laundry room. We bring baskets of dirty laundry one at a time and put them directly into the washer.

If there are more dirty clothes than can fit in one load, we keep the rest outside the door to the laundry room, but never inside. That way, the entire family knows that any clothes you find in the basket inside the laundry room are clean and waiting to be put away.

We recently had to explain this family rule to the grandkids, because I’ve been homeschooling three of them, and they’ll sometimes go running or swimming or take a shower at our house after getting sweaty shooting baskets, and we started finding wet towels in the corner of our laundry room and realized they were changing clothes in there and unwittingly leaving their dirty things behind.

Thankfully they’d dropped them in the corner, but we told them to scoop them up and deposit them in the laundry basket right outside the door instead so they won’t accidentally get mixed in with the clean clothes.

The last thing I’ll say about keeping laundry put away and bedrooms tidy is that I created a little checklist to help my kids know what I mean when I tell them to clean their room. I call it my Bedroom Inspection Chart, and I’ll link a free printable version in today’s shownotes.

But that’s enough about personal chores. The next category of children’s chores is…  

2. Daily Chores

Those are those things that must be done daily or even several times daily—like washing clothes, wiping down counters, sweeping floors, gathering trash, loading the dishwasher, or cooking meals—which benefit the entire family. We do not pay the children to do these chores, either.

Every child from three years-old and up is assigned one daily task to do before or after every meal. And we only rotate these chores annually, so each child will do their assigned chore every day for an entire year. New assignments are made each January according to the child’s maturity and ability.

Younger children get the job of setting the table or sorting clean silverware. Middle kids get to clear the table, load or empty dishwashers, help with meal prep, or gather and take out trash. Older kids get such jobs as sweeping up after meals, wiping down the table tops and counters, or sorting and doing laundry.

The yearly rotation serves several purposes:

1. It makes it easier to tailor assigned chores to each child’s age and capabilities.
2. It eliminates all arguments along the lines of, “I did that yesterday, it’s your turn today.”
3. It allows the child to become proficient in one area before moving on to another.
4. It ensures that, by the time each child is grown and ready to leave home, he/she will have rotated through and become comfortable doing all tasks associated with keeping house: cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.

Of course, there are many other options for rotating chore assignments. One reason the yearly shuffle works for us is that we have so many kids, each one could have a single job. In smaller families, each family member will have more to chores to do, though each individual chore should take less time (It’s faster to load three plates, cups, and forks into the dishwasher than 15 of each!)

This system worked for us for more than three decades. Kids stayed on the rotation until they started college – which may account for why so many of ours have started college classes early! They were incentivized by the knowledge they wouldn’t have to load the dishwasher or sweep the floor three times a day once they were spending most of the day on campus!

Of course, now I’m down to just one child – a 14-year-old daughter – who isn’t in college or grown up and moved away from home, so we set aside the yearly rotations about a year ago.

The nice thing is, all our kids are competent and capable of doing all the things that need to be done around the house, and when they’re home, they all pitch in without even being asked. They wash laundry, fold clothes, cook meals (for the whole family), wash dishes, wipe down counters, and all the rest without my even having to ask, other than to provide a little direction when they volunteer, “What can I do to help?”

And when none of them are around? Then there’s not much of a mess to clean up. Abby and I might have two plates and two cups to put in the dishwasher before heading back to our schoolwork. So it’s pretty easy.

And on days that grandkids are here schooling with us, they pitch in with chores as well. Although they’ve devised a new way to determine who does what: usually by playing knock out. The winner gets first choice in deciding which chore to do – and they all get a little exercise in deciding that and some sportsmanship practice, as well.

So, we’ve discussed personal chores and daily chores, all of which are done without compensation, other than the knowledge and satisfaction that you are doing your share to keep the family home running smoothly as a needed and valued member of the household. And of course gaining skills you’ll need to oversee your own home someday and make it a clean, warm, and inviting place to be, as well.

Then the last category of chores our children do are

3. Paid Chores

These are those bigger tasks that we normally do less frequently. Things that we might hire somebody else to do, like deep cleaning the house or mowing the lawn.

We do some of these paid chores once every week or two, like dusting furniture, mopping floors, scrubbing bathrooms, washing windows, or mowing the lawn.

Others are seasonal, like pruning trees, weeding or mulching flowerbeds, splitting wood, hanging outdoor lights on the house at Christmas time.

These are big jobs historically done by our older children. They do great work. We pay them for it and pay them well, knowing that the more they earn, the more they save for college, since they’re only allowed to spend half of what they earn.

The rest is split between savings (40%) and giving (10%), either to the church or missions or some other charitable cause of their own choosing. (That prepares them for the real world, where a big portion of their paycheck will go to pay taxes and social security and such.)

For younger kids who were interested in earning money, I’d find other jobs that needed to be done less frequently, such as cleaning baseboards, raking leaves, or washing cars.

If you need more ideas for the kinds of chores kids can do, I made a pretty little free printable chart I made several years back, which I entitled: Age-Appropriate Chores for Children. I’ll link it in today’s shownotes.

It was so popular when I first published it that our website broke from all the traffic it generated. A Montessori Facebook pages reposted it, and a couple of major newspapers referenced it as well in articles or editorials – I don’t remember for sure which ones… I’m thinking it was the NY Times and the Huffington Post or maybe USA today – but it caused our traffic to spike, sending us well over 100-150 thousand visitors in a matter of hours after each article was posted.

That’s despite the fact most of those mentions didn’t even link to our website. I’m assuming readers just saw the URL I embedded in the printable and looked us up that way.

It gained traction in other countries, as well, and was even translated into Spanish, German, French, and Italians. (You can download copies of those translations, as well, through that link I’ll put in the shownotes)

Of course as is the case with anything that attracts a lot attention, people were very polarized in their reaction to my little children’s chore chart. Some people thought it was terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad that I expected my kids to make their beds, tidy their rooms, and clear their dishes from the dinner table – and they told me so in no uncertain terms.

Children’s chores were tantamount to slavery in their minds. “Making your children into your personal slaves does not make them better people or more productive humans.” One reader wrote. Another suggested, ““This list is a bit overboard. Try birth control.”

I suspect some of the objections I received may have come from kids rather than adults — maybe even kids who didn’t like the fact their parents had printed off my list and were now requiring them to pitch in. 😉

A boy named Alexander got right to the point: “This list is bull crap.” He told me.

I conceded that he might be right, but — as every good gardener knows —cow manure is just the thing for helping young plants grow big and strong. And doing regular chores has the same effect on children.

Several readers told me I was stealing my children’s childhoods by making them do chores, and one even suggested the only reason I had so many kids is so I’d have that much more free labor – which is so laughable, I can only guess the person who made the accusation has absolutely no appreciation for the law of cause and effect (and probably has no children either). Because if my highest goal really were to just sit around with my feet up all day long, then giving birth to twelve babies and spending more eighteen years housing, clothing, teaching, and training each of them would be a wildly inefficient way to accomplish that dream!

FORTUNATELY, those negative comments were in the minority. I had lots of readers who thought my children’s chore list was the best thing since sliced bread. “That’s what’s wrong with today’s youth!” they insisted, “they aren’t required to do any meaningful work.”

Many parents understand instinctively that doing chores is good for children and for the family as a whole. We do our kids no favors by attending to all the chores oirselves while our children play. Chores teach life skills, build confidence, contribute to family living, and prepare kids for eventual independence.

Plus, when a child gains competence and experience in one area, it often improves his performance and willingness to try in other areas. These are all good things, and several readers noted even more positive effects of incorporating our children’s help with household duties, including the fact that chores

• Chores give kids a sense of belonging and of being part of a team.
• Chores teach responsibility, independence, and time management skills.”
• Chores give children “the joy of doing a good job and of helping others and making the world a better place.”
• Chores combat “laziness, self-centeredness,” and “feelings of entitlement.”
• Chores “turn children into good, productive, hard-working citizens.”
• Chores make kids “feel important in the family structure.”
• Chores give kids an opportunity to “learn through participation. Children gain confidence by mastering new skills, especially skills they perceive as ‘grown-up.’”
• Chores give children “hands-on job training for life!”
• Chores serve to “instill a strong work ethic. Children are more capable than a lot of people think.”

Some readers told me how grateful they were that their own parents taught them the value of hard work, or that they raised their children in a similar way and are so blessed to see their children thriving now as adults.

And that last point is a recurrent theme. When researchers studied highly-successful people, they found that the two things most of them had in common were that they ate meals as a family and were required to do chores while growing up.

I don’t remember where I first saw that research, but I know Harvard has done a similar, 75-year longitudinal study which demonstrated a clear link between doing chores as a child and becoming a happier, more successful adult.

Plus, it’s good for children’s psychological well-being to do meaningful work and to know their help is needed and their contributions are appreciated and they are valued members of the team. And the earlier we start, the better.

So… what was on this polarizing list of children’s chores? I won’t read the entire list, but here’s a sampling to show you what kids are capable of. Naturally, every child is different, and this is not meant to be a benchmark listing or competency test. But all things being considered, the majority of kids – including all twelve of my own—are able to do some very basic things even at very young ages. For instance,

By age 2 or 3, kids can learn to:

• Put toys in toy box
• Stack books on shelf
• Throw trash away
• Place dirty clothes in laundry hamper (preferably just as soon as they pull them off their bodies!)

Often singing a little song will motivate them to pitch in when it’s time to put the toys or books away and tidy the house.

“Clean up, clean up, everybody, everywhere. Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share.” I think that may have been a Barney song? Remember that purple dinosaur? I never watched Barney, so I’m not sure, but that may be where that song originated.

Another is, “Who can help pick up the toys? I can help! I can help! Who can help pick up the toys? I can be a helper.”

I used to sing that one with my children’s names: Who can help pick up the toys? “Jonathan! Yes he can.” Or “Bethany, yesiree!” Or “David can! He’s the man! Who can help pick up the toys? David is a helper!”

Then, by age 4-5, children can learn to:

• Feed pets – (especially if you’ll provide a measuring cup for dry food to keep serving size consistent)
• Make their beds (as we discussed earlier)
• Sort clean silverware – you can put away the sharp knives yourself and let your little one do the rest
• Prepare simple snacks – like cheese and crackers, rinse and de-stem grapes, peanut butter toast, etc.

Kids ages 6-7 can:

• carry a bag through the house and gather trash from every room. (Not that the trash is scattered, but that you have smaller trash cans throughout the house, near desks and in bedrooms. You know what I mean)
• they can also learn to Fold towels – teach them how to line up the edges and make a neat stack
• Dust mop floors – attach a telescoping handle so it’s just their size
• Empty dishwasher – you may want to invest in shatter-proof plates and drinkware, etc.

By 8 or 9, kids can:

• Load dishwasher – rinse dishes first then load from back to front
• Wash laundry – teach them how to balance the load, add soap, and operate the machine
• Bake cookies – our kids usually start with these 3-ingredient peanut butter cookies
• Wipe off table – teach them how to do this task without wiping crumbs onto the floor

Ages 10-11 can:

• Clean bathrooms – mirrors, counters, sinks, bath tubs, toilets, and floors
• Vacuum rugs – by this age, kids can push a vacuum over carpets and rugs
• Prepare simple meals
• Mow lawn – but only while wearing closed-toe shoes!

Ages 12 and up can learn to:

• Mop the house
• Trim the hedges, and with proper instruction,
• Do simple home repairs like fixing leaky pipes, loose doorknobs, broken hinges, etc.

Now, you need to remember that teaching a child to do any chore will likely take more time than just doing the chore yourself, at least initially. Some kids will need more supervision than others, over a longer period of time, before they can complete the chore up to standard.

Honestly, that’s probably why some parents don’t even bother trying. But the effort is so worth it in the end, so let’s follow Paul’s advice in Galatians 6:9

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

We should also do our best to be an encourager rather than a drill sergeant if we want our kids to do their work heartily and well.

I have some fun and creative suggestions for getting kids to do their chores cheerfully, but I think I’m going to need to save that topic for another podcast. In the meantime, I’ll put a link to a blog post I wrote on the topic in today’s show notes.

The point is, if you want your kids to develop a strong work ethic and learn time management skills and be better prepared for life, then assign regular chores.  Have them make their beds, put away their toys, keep their rooms tidy, clear dinner dishes, and help fold laundry.

Set a good example for them of how to do everything without complaining or arguing, as we’re told in Philippians 2:14 to do. Work alongside them knee to knee and shoulder to shoulder.

And train them to be a team player by doing their assigned chores competently, consistently, and cheerfully. Such traits will lay a foundation for future success, regardless what field of work they ultimately choose.