I once heard a mom say that she didn't make her kids do chores because she didn't want to ruin their childhood with responsibility. Well, they may have had the best childhood ever, but I'm guessing their adulthood just might have been ruined with irresponsibility.
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| A washer full of burnt smelling shredded paper? |
All kids need to learn to work hard, to help out, and to be responsible. In our house we always say once the belly button stub falls off, it's time to quit loafing and get a job! Okay- maybe not quite that young. But once a child is old enough to follow directions, they are old enough to start helping out. Children need chores to help them grow into happy, responsible adults. Don't set them up for a hard life later with your efforts to give them an easy childhood now.
But what if they do a terrible job?
Lower your standards. No seriously. Your kids are not going to do things as well as you do, but they won't get better unless you let them practice. And practice and practice and practice. And expect some horrible mistakes along the way. My twelve year old recently did a load of laundry. It was the smell of smoke that first alerted us to the fact that something had gone terribly wrong. We have yet to identify what type of paper product went into the wash with her clothes, but what came out was more than four cups full of shredded paper puffs from the washing machine and an additional eight cups of paper fluff from the dryer! We rewashed the load three times, but her clothes still smell slightly of smoke. This is the price we pay to have independent and capable children.
Start them young and let them practice. When they stink at a job, resist the urge to redo it yourself. And don't be overly critical of their efforts. If they have done their best, praise them and move on. That sticky spot on the table won't kill anyone if it gets left for another day.
If you think they are capable of more, but just not giving it their best, insist they try again. Show them where they can improve, and let them redo the chore right away (they will hate this). If you accept lousy work, they will learn that lousy work is acceptable. If you think they can do better, insist that they do. (Confession: I intentionally got out of doing dishes for years because I did such a terrible job my mom would always make my sister do them instead. Sorry Michelle.)
What can kids be expected to do?
There are a million lists out there of age appropriate chores. I won't repeat them here, but here are two lists if you want them.
This one or This other one.
But every child is different, and you'll really need to assess the individual skills and maturity of your own kids to make that decision. A six foot tall twelve year old may have no trouble mowing the lawn. A four foot tall twelve year old might not do as well. (Confession: When I was ten, my mom asked me to iron, but I showed her I was too short to use our ironing board. Despite growing more than a foot in the next few years, I still used that excuse until I was almost eighteen! Every time my mom asked me to iron, I would say, "Remember? I'm too short." And she would agree and go do the ironing herself. Hahahaha! Sorry, Mom.) Be sure to reassess your kids' abilities regularly to make sure their chores are appropriate for them.
Some of my kids are good workers, but some are not. How do I make sure I'm dividing chores fairly?
Life is not fair, but we still want to treat our children as fairly as is reasonable. As my kids have gotten older, I've noticed that I expect less and less out of my younger kids. My oldest child worked a lot harder at three years old than my youngest child does now at five. I can't help it. When your six year old it the oldest of four kids, they seem pretty responsible. But when your six year old is the youngest of five, they seem like a baby! We all naturally treat older kids a lot older, and younger kids a lot younger. The same holds true for privileges. I'm still mad that my mom let my older sister walk around the block by herself when she was six, but when I turned eight, my mom was still telling me I was too young. So not fair! (Okay, maybe it was payback for the whole dishes/ironing thing.) To combat the injustices of life in my own home, we started an eternal chore/privilege chart that has been posted on our wall for years. It looks something like this:
Life is not fair, but we still want to treat our children as fairly as is reasonable. As my kids have gotten older, I've noticed that I expect less and less out of my younger kids. My oldest child worked a lot harder at three years old than my youngest child does now at five. I can't help it. When your six year old it the oldest of four kids, they seem pretty responsible. But when your six year old is the youngest of five, they seem like a baby! We all naturally treat older kids a lot older, and younger kids a lot younger. The same holds true for privileges. I'm still mad that my mom let my older sister walk around the block by herself when she was six, but when I turned eight, my mom was still telling me I was too young. So not fair! (Okay, maybe it was payback for the whole dishes/ironing thing.) To combat the injustices of life in my own home, we started an eternal chore/privilege chart that has been posted on our wall for years. It looks something like this:
age 9, load dishwasher/call friends on the phone
age 10, do own laundry/stay home alone
age 11...etc...
Every age has a specific chore associated with it along with a privilege. When our kids turn eight we expect them to learn how to sweep and to take their turn sweeping during the week. They also get to start carrying a house key. Getting older brings both a privilege and a responsibility. Having things predetermined by age helps keep me from favoring the younger kids and stops the older kids from crying foul all the time.
We also have a second layer of age restrictions in place. This system has two guiding principles: 1. A child who is old enough to go to school is old enough to have big kid responsibilities, and 2. As kids get older they will become busier at school and have less time for chores.
When my kids are little they each have one chore to do every day. When they start grade-school, they move up to two chores a day. Middle-schoolers (who are starting to get busy) get to cut back to one chore a day. And when my kids start high school, they get to give up their daily chores all together. This is done partly for their sake, but mostly for mine. It was really frustrating when the dishes never got done because the child assigned to load the dishwasher was gone four nights a week playing softball. Note: just because they don't have daily chores, doesn't mean they have no chores. They still participate in chores on non-school days and help younger siblings whenever possible, as well as having weekend-specific responsibilities.
Bottom line? Kids need chores. All kids. They will be terrible at first, but be patient. The more you expect out of them, the more they will rise to meet your standards. Periodically reevaluate your children's responsibilities to determine if they are still appropriate. And if you are really lucky, your kids will reap the benefits of responsibility and a good work ethic (and they'll get great jobs and be able to afford a nice retirement home for you when you get old!).
Marcia
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