On board with chores: The benefits of having your kids pitch in

When young children participate in household tasks, they develop self-confidence and a sense of belonging. Clearly, this is reason enough, but the additional upshot for parents is that children who are a part of shared family responsibilities from a young age become truly helpful teammates as they grow. As I type this, my laundry tumbles away in the washer downstairs, courtesy of my teenager.

If you’re interested in getting your little kiddo started on chores, but not sure where to start, you can find any number of online resources suggesting different tasks for tots. We like this age-based list from Montessori educator Simone Davies, and this one from the University of Arkansas that goes all the way up to the teenage years. Much more abundant online than these lists are any number of Pinteresty-cute ideas for chore charts, but all that really matters is that whatever system you land on works for you and your child, is age-appropriate, and is simple enough that consistency and follow-through don’t add much to the emotional labor of your day.

For some of us (myself included), organizing a system like this can feel clunky or overwhelming. If this is also true for you, get creative in how you involve your child in household tasks. When my children were small, we had one or two regular chores for each of them (largely centered around pets, because of their need for consistent and timely daily care), but we also developed a “flash job” policy.

At our house, a “flash job” was (and remains) a very quick task that a parent can recognize needs doing in the moment, and ask a child to do immediately. An example of this is taking the compost out; if I need it done right away because I’m chopping vegetables and filling the bucket pretty quickly, my kids know they need to do it right away, to contribute to our next meal and the functioning of our family unit. However, they also know that if I’m asking them to do a flash job, I’m promising that the job will not take long and won’t disrupt whatever they’re engaged in at the moment for more than a couple minutes. It isn’t worth their time to protest; this expectation has easily been the longest-standing and most successful element of our ever-evolving family chore regimen. Bonus: young children love games. Asking them to do a “really fast” job often feels like a great time to them rather than a chore!

Another creative concept, which we learned about from a parent in one of our ECFE classes, is to train children to “Notice And Do” tasks on their own. This idea was introduced by mom and therapist Sam Kelly, and you can read about it here. You can also come to our ECFE classes and teach us things! Our next term is coming right up.

Finally, parents in our society would do well to learn from modern Mayan moms, via author Michaeleen Doucleff (listen here). Simply including children in whatever task we’re doing, even when it slows us down and takes more effort in the short-term, is the most natural-and successful!-way we can teach them to participate in shared family responsibilities. With chores, as with so many other elements of parenting, we’re playing the long game.

Stay hydrated my friends; your toddler can even fill your water bottle for ya!