Chores For Kids

Everyone that lives within a household should help to maintain that household. No one should be excused from chores at home. Even the smallest of kids can help out. Chores will help kids to learn responsibility and respect for their property and the property of others.

Do not be vague in what you want the child to do. “Go clean your room” is not only vague but it can be a daunting task also. Start with, "Go pick up all of your Lego’s and then we will work on something else.”

Label containers with pictures and words for what is stored inside. Kids can not put things away if they do not know where they belong.

Do not expect perfection. If you are going to go along behind some one and re-clean because it is not up to your standards then you are just setting yourself up to do chores alone. No one likes to think that they are not good enough. Some things can be below your standards and still be just fine.

Put on some music and dance around while doing chores, this will add an element of fun to the chores and kids will be more likely to participate.

Write each chore that needs to be done on a slip of paper. Each family member then pulls slips until they are gone. This way no one can say they always get stuck with the bad chores.

Be sure to compliment people for helping out. Everyone likes to feel appreciated and if a good deed gets noticed they will want that feeling again.

Make a game of clean up time. Turn on a song or set a timer and say “I think I can pick up more cars than you can before this song is over.” A challenge can go a long way in making things fun.

Be sure that there are some towels in an area that the kids can reach. If they can not reach the items needed to clean up a spill, they can not clean it up.

Kids want to be helpful and they want to do grown up things. This is the time to encourage this desire. All kids should know how to clean up around the house. When they do this, there should be a small reward also. If my son does his chores all week, we go out for donuts on Saturday mornings.