Help Around the House
Chores! They are the root of many an argument in households across the world. A house is overflowing with them, parents don’t have the time or energy to do them by themselves (and nor should they) but children don’t seem to see the chores that keep building up. And sometimes it seems the older the children, the more easily they can ignore the chores just sitting in front of them.
So what should parents do? Leave it, do it themselves, or engage their children in the never-ending of the chores!
Well, a little hard work never hurt anyone, and doing chores around the house will not only be helpful for you, it is a life skill all children should learn, so I believe it is something you should pursue. After all, dishes will not clean themselves and toys will not put themselves away. Doing chores around the house will teach children personal responsibility, helps them to see the bigger picture that is Us versus I, and instils a good work ethic. It also makes them feel like an important part of the family because they take an active part in being someone other members can rely on. As if that wasn’t enough, if everyone is helping around the house it means more fun family time together which is always a good thing. So, the benefits of children chipping in with the chores are a-plenty.
As is the case with the younger children, sometimes they need to be shown how to do certain chores, but with a common sense approach over which ones you assign to them, it is never too late to get them into the habit of pulling their weight around the house. A word of warning though, when you are teaching chores to a younger child, be prepared for it to take three times as long as it would if you were doing it yourself. However, also remember that your lengthy investment in time will eventually pay dividends as the years roll on.
Certain chores, such as tidying up their own toys and helping to set or clear the table at meal times, should be taught as being their natural responsibility, regardless of any other chores they have done that day, but you should introduce other chores too. As far as what chores they can do, as long as they are safe, age-appropriate, and do not involve anything that could potentially be harmful or dangerous, the sky’s the limit. Some chores can even be turned into a game.
It will be harder introducing the concept of housework to a teenager who has got used to the magic of things tidying themselves up. However, that does not mean it is impossible. As many parents know, getting your teenager to do anything that resembles hard work (and is boring on top of that!) can sometimes feel like you’re trying to get blood out of a stone. If this is the case, give them an incentive. This could be chores (notice the plural in choreS) in return for more screen time or time with their friends, but do not use this as a bribe for making them do any job. They need to learn they have a responsibility to help around the house too.
A handful of the jobs your children could help you with can include:
Dusting
Put those odd socks to good use by helping your young child make their own sock puppet duster. Then simply lightly moisten the puppet with a little furniture polish and let your child run their hand across the surface of things they can reach with ease. They might even be able to get into that tricky corner your hands can never reach.
Tidying their toys
Race against the clock to see if they can finish putting their toys away before the time runs out. If you have the time, you can play traffic lights…You are the traffic light and red means they must stand as still as a statue, amber means they need to get ready to tidy something, and the green light means they need to tidy up as quickly as they can before the light changes to red again. Conveniently, the green light can stay on considerably longer than the other two! This will not only get them tidying at speed, it will also help develop those all-important listening skills.
Pairing socks
Young children will not necessarily be able to pair the socks together as such, but being able to recognise identical patterns is an early mathematics skill worth teaching.
Folding clothes
As long as you’re not precious about how well the clothing in question is folded, you can begin teaching children how to fold clothes and other items from as young as three years old. Flannels are an obvious easier choice for younger children but they can then progress onto T-shirts and trousers, and everything else! There is no reason why they can’t help you put them away either, if you have the time to spare.
Preparing lunch or dinner
Whether it’s buttering their own bread for a sandwich or whisking the eggs for an omelette, you can teach your child essential cooking skills, beginning with the simplest of tasks. As they get older it will be safer to progress onto the harder tasks but the greatest of care must be always be taken, and food, kitchen and personal hygiene and safety must always be your highest priority.
Watering the garden
Using a hose is always fun. Just make sure your child is mature enough to use it properly and understands that most plants needs an equal share of water.
Sweeping or hoovering the floor
Most children find hoovering one of the more fun chores to do. For older children, if you’re lucky enough for them to do a thorough job the first time, that’s great. However, you may have to show them how to navigate rugs, and different floor types, and teach them the importance of checking the floor for things that could clog up the pipe.
Pet care
Even young children can and should learn how to properly care for their pets. Whether it is taking the dog for a walk, feeding the fish or helping you clean out the rabbit, they need to recognise the responsibility they have for caring for another living being. This is particularly important if it was something they actively wanted to have.
The above is a mere handful of the jobs children could help you with, so stick with these or add your own to the list. Either way, just make sure the chores you assign your child are suitable for both their age and their skills. Certainly for the younger children, you should always be there to supervise them but once children have hit their teens, they should be responsible and capable enough to complete their chores without guidance and without being asked twice.
So, you know the why and you know the what, but you don’t yet know the how…
Well, the first thing to consider is their age as this will have an influence on what job you assign to your child, and how you approach getting them to lend a hand around the house.
By default, it is much easier to get young children into the habit of helping with chores around the house and garden. This is because they enjoy imitating the role of the adult, and new tasks are always fun and exciting for them, so that gives them the motivation to want to do it. Of course, the only drawback is that their attention span is short and their skill level, limited, so you must choose the jobs you give them with care otherwise you are likely to be making more work for yourself when you have to tidy, or fix, their good intentions.
It will be more of a challenge the older the children are, and you can probably expect an uphill battle if you are introducing chores to a teenager for the first time. However, harder battles have been fought and won, so persevere. As every parent of an average teenager knows, they are unlikely to want to do chores especially when previously they did not have to, so you are going to have to provide them with an incentive. What kind of incentive they respond to will differ according to their age, interests and motivations, but you can use things such as extended game time or time out with their friends, or some other reward you both agree on when their chores have been completed.
At this point you may be saying ‘What about pocket money for chores?’
Although money is an obvious incentive, I personally would not use this as it goes against the whole principle of the responsibility they have to help around the house. Do you get paid to do the housework? No, you just accept it as something that needs to be done, so it should be the same for everyone living under the same roof. Children or teenagers should not only do chores if they think they are going to get paid for it. However, by using other incentives, they will learn that with hard work comes rewards. If your children want to earn extra pocket money, it should be done so by doing additional chores to the ones they should already be doing anyway.
As well as thinking about their age, also consider their energy level. Are they high energy, bull-in-a-china-shop kind of person, or are they methodical and careful? Take advantage of their natural tendency by giving them the jobs that match their energy level. So, if they are always full of energy, giving them jobs that require a little more elbow grease, but not much care or finesse, is ideal because not only does it save you a job, it may also help burn off a little of their excess energy.
As already mentioned, younger children tend to have shorter attention spans, so this must be reflected in the chores they do. However, older children can sometimes be equally short on the attention they are likely to give to any one chore. If this is the case, give them a fun chore to do such as watering the garden, or one that only requires a little attention over a prolonged period of time, such as putting the laundry in the washing machine and/or tumble dryer.
It goes without saying that once children or teenagers are used to doing a few of the jobs they enjoy, they must learn to accept the jobs they do not find so fun.
Sometimes children just don’t want to do any job. And who can blame them? Chores are hardly the highlight of anyone’s day. Other times they all fight about doing the same one! If you find your children will not agree to do any of the chores you assign to them, but they cannot agree between themselves who is going to do what job, use a rota or put the jobs in a hat and let them use chance. This way they cannot cite unfairness as a reason not to do the job! However, if you are going to use the jobs in a hat method, everyone must agree to do the job that they get.
The last, but probably most important thing to remember is to remain firm and consistent; getting your children to pull their weight will eventually be a breeze!