Yes, your child should absolutely be doing age appropriate chores. Let’s unpack why and your hangups about chores.
First let’s talk about our ultimate, long term goals as parents. Typically, we want our kids to grow up to be self-sufficient adults that contribute to society…and also don’t live with us forever (come on, I know it’s not just me with that goal in mind). As parents it’s our job to teach our kids everything we can about what that looks like and how to do it. Therefore, it’s our responsibility to teach them how to run a house, do laundry, clean a toilet and wash dishes.
But my kid won’t do them right! I’ll have to redo them. Yup, you can put money on the fact that kids won’t do the chores they way you like them. Did you perform a task perfectly the first time you tired it? Doubt it. Looks like you’ll have to take time to teach them how to do it properly and be ok when it isn’t perfect. Remember, these are skills and lessons that take years to ingrain in a child.
But kids don’t like to do chores. No kidding, neither do adults! Somewhere along the lines we learned that doing chores was necessary to sustain a functional life. In my house, chores are expected to be finished adequately before you have earned the privilege to hop on a screen. Some weeks chores are more lax because there isn’t much going on, but other times chores need to be on point due to a family party.
Are daily or weekly chores best? Both. We clean up after ourselves daily, this includes dishes, picking up toys, making your bed, putting the days dirty clothes in the designated place, etc. Things like laundry, cleaning bathrooms, dusting, etc can be done on a weekly basis.
The bottomline is that when a group of people live together, everyone needs to pitch in to keep the house running. There are very few exceptions. A toddler can help pick up their toys, a teenager can do dishes, keep their room tidy and help with weekend cleaning. This is how we create functional, self sufficient adults.
~Larena
