When I hear the word “chores,” I automatically feel that sense of “ugh” in my body. How do you feel? The Cambridge Dictionary defines chores as “a job or piece of work that is often boring or unpleasant but needs to be done regularly.”
How can we get ourselves and our children to have a more positive feelings around those tasks that have to be done as part of life?
How do we inspire our kids to take initiative in preparing, cleaning, organizing, and dealing with the stuff of life?
Turn Chores into “Contributions” – Why Chores Matter
For me, the biggest positive energy shift comes from thinking about chores as contributions to the family. The Oxford Dictionary defines contribution as: 1) a gift or payment to a common fund or collection. 2) the part played by a person or thing in bringing about a result or helping something to advance. We elevate chores to a cooperative effort and valuable service.
All human beings need to feel a sense of significance and belonging to feel happy and healthy. For this reason, children’s mental and physical health improves when they feel like active contributors to the family. Even though they may grumble or resist some tasks, they also develop a sense of pride and self-worth by doing hard things and developing skills along the way. If your child is feeling down or anxious, teaching them how to contribute to the family can help them feel better. When we feel competent and needed, we feel more important.
As parents, we need to remember that we are raising our children to be adults that we and the world will enjoy for decades. If we do everything for them, our kids will feel less capable and more dependent on us and others throughout their lives. We need to let our kids learn through practice and the inevitable mistakes that happen in order to help them understand how to contribute to the family in meaningful ways.
If your child is already a teen, it’s not too late. You can say something like “I need to teach you some important life skills, so let’s do this together.” Start involving them in taking care of household responsibilities now. These are skills that will help your child be a good friend, roommate, partner, and community member. Schedule a Complimentary Clarity Call with me if you need help.
3 Doable Steps to Teach Children to Contribute to the Household
I find the following steps work well to help our kids to contribute to the household and develop lifelong skills.
- Show and Involve
- Encourage
- Request Help
Experiment and see what works best for you and your kids!
Show and Involve:
There’s a quote attributed to the Chinese Confucian philosopher, Xun Kuang that says:
“Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.”
Our children need us to be patient, clear, and supportive as we guide them through the steps of new tasks, whether it be loading the dishwasher, doing laundry, or crossing the street safely. Doing new things together can be an opportunity for connection, teaching, and fun as you chat while doing the task together.
Your positive energy makes a big difference towards making your child interested in cooperating and learning. Adding a bit of playfulness, music or interesting conversation can also help entice a reluctant child or teen into participation.
Young Children:
Clean up example: With young children, it’s often best to not explain too much, but to show and coach them along the way instead.
“Let’s clean up your toys. How do you think we should organize them?”
See what your child does before commenting. Thinking about the process and making decisions on their own first helps kids learn more effectively. Having freedom to make choices keeps them interested and engaged. You can make supportive observations as they work by offering a suggestion or two.
“That’s a good idea to put all the trucks together. Why don’t we put the crayons and paper in a separate spot since those are more delicate and break easily?”
Older Children:
Laundry Example: When teaching my kids to do the laundry, I have followed this process. I show my approach as we go along, and ask them to make guesses about why we separate lights from darks, use warm or cool water, and line dry vs. tumble dry certain items. When they have to think about something, they are more likely to remember it in the future.
Mistakes are part of the learning process:
We do the first few washes together. Conversation and experience helps, but it’s often not until they make a mistake and find their new red shirt stained their white t-shirt or their cool t-shirt logo got wrinkly in the dryer that they truly understand what needs to happen to keep one’s clothes in good condition.
Cooperation brings togetherness and belonging:
Because I value efficiency and doing things together, we often combine our laundry as a family and fold together while listening to music or talking when possible. This means I might need to ask one of my kids to switch the wash to the dryer or be the initiator of the folding party. However, I don’t mind because there is a shared understanding that we all are contributing to a process that benefits everyone, so everyone is expected to participate.
We do our best to apply this idea to cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, raking leaves, bringing in groceries, getting ready for outings and other household tasks. If you can walk, you can pitch in to help.
The more you can make both young and older children feel they have some choice in how something is done, the more cooperation and investment in the process you will get from them.
Encourage:
When children and teens show a desire to help or do a task, let them, as long as it’s not too dangerous. Here are some tips to help encourage your child (or a partner 🙂 ) effectively:
- Be prepared to let go of perfection and instead, notice what they’re doing well.
- Make specific observations about the positive things you notice.
- Offer thanks for their efforts.
- If you need to offer a suggestion, use kindness and partnership.
This might sound like:
- “Wow, you found the crumbs under the toaster, too. Thanks for wiping the counter well.”
- “I like how carefully you are pouring the water. Here’s a sponge if it splashes a little. That happens sometimes.”
- “Thank you for vacuuming. You got all the main areas. I’d love it if you can move the chairs to get under them, too. Want some help?”
- I appreciate your washing the dishes. This kitchen is looking good. I see that there are a few pans left to wash. What’s your plan for those? Want to do them together?”
Request help with little things:
As soon as young children are able to walk, you can start teaching them the art of cooperation by involving them in simple tasks like bringing you a box of tissues, organizing shoes, or getting a diaper for a baby. As they get taller and more proficient, you can have them help put away silverware from the dishwasher (after washing their hands), help pack a bag for an outing, unpack their lunchbox, make their bed, hang up a towel, or participate in baking or cooking.
Young children love to help in general, but we can dampen their interest by correcting too much, redoing things they did, not noticing their efforts, or letting them sit around on screens while we do all the work.
Sometimes it feels easier to do it on our own. Teaching kids how to contribute to the household is a gift that keeps on giving if we teach them now. A little effort and attention goes a long way towards a more enjoyable future with our kids. We will raise adults who actively contribute towards the world as a whole. What better parenting can you do than that?
There is now a wonderful friendship and love between me and my son…
It has been two years since I did parenting coaching sessions with Amy and I still use ideas and techniques I learned during that time. I am so happy that there is now a wonderful friendship and love between me and my son which I had not thought would be possible when I started the coaching. He now reads more books and makes better choices. I am so grateful to Amy for those conversations, and her support and wisdom that changed my approach to parenting and brought light into our family life.
Olga D, Newton, MA, mother of 9 & 5 year old children
Jumpstart conversation cards —
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