I’ve heard that many parents are wondering if they should be giving children the responsibility of chores. With the amount of schoolwork children are responsible for, as well as the extracurricular activities they often do, kids are exceptionally busy and parents sometimes wonder if they aren’t putting too much pressure on them.
Well, don’t fret parents. As it turns out, chores are actually good for your kids, though it is likely some of those extracurriculars need to go. If you need help figuring out where to start your kids doing chores – grab our free printable chore list by age.
With experience raising six kids in a busy house, I’m a big champion of delegating responsibility and making sure kids have the life skills they need to thrive once they leave for college.
Giving kids chores at home helps them learn responsibility and learn many of the skills they will need to run their own household. Getting children to help around the house is not always easy, but it’s essential for their own good.
None of my children will leave home without knowing how to do laundry, cook, clean, and manage their finances. These things are not optional life skills, and yet college professors report that these are the very skills college kids most lack.
In case you need further convincing, here are ten great reasons your kids should do chores at home:
- Kids should do chores because it teaches responsibility. Children need to learn responsibility and can start understanding this value from a very young age. In order to succeed in life, responsibility is key. One easy way to start with teaching kids responsibility is by having them clean up their own stuff, such as their toys or laundry.
- Kids should do chores because it makes them aware of the messes they create. If they are responsible for cleaning up their own messes, kids will be less likely to create them and more likely to pick up after themselves as the day goes on.
- Kids should do chores because it gives them pride. Taking care of the family’s home and their possessions helps to build pride in children. When you take care of your things, you learn to appreciate them more and be proud of your ownership.
- Kids should do chores because it builds self reliance. Life skills. Our children need to learn the tools necessary to be independent adults at some point. As boring as it may sound, being able to take care of housework is one of those necessary tools.
- Kids should do chores because it builds confidence. Kids need to have the confidence to be self-reliant as they grow. When children are given the opportunity to master a particular chore before they move on to one that is more difficult, they not only take pride in a job well done, they have increasing confidence in their ability to perform tasks well. Our children have daily chores assigned based on age and ability and every six months or so we evaluate chores and increase the difficulty level so that children can keep working toward mastery or learn new skills.
- Kids should do chores because many hands make light work. Whether or not you work outside of the home, you work hard at home too and there is no reason for mom or dad to do all the work required to keep a home. You didn’t create the mess on your own, and you shouldn’t clean it up on your own. When everyone pitches in, the home will be more pleasant, work will take less time, and everyone wins.
- Kids should do chores because it keeps them active. Kids given too much free time tend to sit around on devices when they could be up getting active and getting stuff done. Chores are a great way to get kids up and moving right before you send them outside to play!
- Kids should do chores because it is family time. Doing chores together as a family is a great way to build a team atmosphere in your home. You are accomplishing a project together as you spend time together. Family chore time is a great time to get into conversations as well. Go ahead and ask how their day was or what’s been going on with them and their friends. That makes family chore time a great time for bonding.
- Kids should do chores because they learn to work together. Chore time is also a great time to learn to work together. Have your kids work together on one large project and see how well they can do it together. With some effort on your part, they will see how much better and quicker things can be completed when they work together as a team.
- Kids should do chores because chores are a good motivation for allowance. If you give your children an allowance, chores are a great motivating factor. For those who are concerned about connecting them, many people have the children do basic chores with no allowance tacked on, but increase allowance for those who do extra chores or put in added effort. In our home, chores are not tied to a specific amount but your chores must be done if you expect to get an allowance each week. Both are part and parcel of being a member of our family.
Need help teaching kids how to do their chores and other basic life skills? We love Skill Trekker!
[…] In our home, we’ve decided to give our kids a set weekly amount based on age — as long as they do their daily assigned chores. They also have to do household work that everyone participates in, like filling the dishwasher or straightening the living room. Those are separate from the specific assigned daily chores each child completes. […]