Do your kids give you lip service when it’s time to do chores?
“How do I get my kids to help out with chores?” is a question I get ALL THE TIME!
If you’ve been struggling to get your kids to help with chores, I have good news for you—we are going to cover this topic today!
Chores vs. responsibilities
To start, I make a distinction between chores and responsibilities.
- Responsibilities: Things my children can do without me or with minimal teaching episodes
- Chores: Things I will be doing regardless if the kids help me or not
I pay or incentivize (e.g., family nights at Boomers or Dave and Busters) my children to do chores; I do not pay them to do their responsibilities. And note: this is what works for us in my house. Something different may work for you.
How to get children to help clean the house
This week I had the opportunity to talk with a mom about this very problem. I recorded the conversation to give you an inside look at how I tackle getting kids to help out at home. Let’s dive in:
Q: I’ve had some trouble getting everyone in the family to pitch in with the chores and household duties. Sometimes when I ask the kids to do their share, they get angry and refuse to cooperate. This puts a lot of strain on my husband and me, and we have become increasingly upset about the situation.
Do you have any suggestions that might help us get the kids to cooperate? We have four children: two boys, ages 16 and 15, and two girls, ages 10 and 8.
As a family unit, we get along wonderfully, but I hate the disruptions that the lack of cooperation about the chores causes. My husband and I both hate to have confrontations with them, but we do realize that we need to do something about the situation. Thanks for any help that you can give us.
A: Yes, I do have several suggestions for you on positive parenting skills and getting your children to cooperate on a regular basis. Do the children get along with each other, or do they fight all the time?
Q: They have their difficulties with each other, but most of the time, they get along well. They have a lot of fun together when we do family outings.
A: That’s wonderful that your kids all enjoy your family time! Ideally, this is what you want to happen with the chores. You want them to understand that cleaning and taking care of the home can provide more opportunities to have fun together. It’s not all just hard work. It keeps bugs and critters out of the house!
Emphasize to your kids, also, that the sooner they complete their chores, the sooner they will have time for themselves. This will give them an added incentive to finish their chores quickly and be done with them.
They can work as teams if they like and help each other out, but they should each have their own individual chores as well. Do you have a list of chores that you want each of them to do?
Q: Not right now. We just ask them to do something, and they always balk at it. Should we make some sort of list for them to look at?
A: Yes, each child should have age-appropriate chores of their own.
Q: After we make a list of things that they need to do, how do we implement them? My husband and I seem to have difficulties with handling them whenever they are giving us challenges. It’s not so much that we can’t discipline them, but more that it’s just easier to do things ourselves when they won’t listen.
A: That same attitude is more common than you think in families! Parents don’t want to be too harsh on their kids because they feel that the world will be very harsh on them anyway.
It’s important to remember, though, that you’re not being harsh when you institute discipline and responsibilities. Part of living is taking care of the home. Once your children see that they must cooperate, they will learn good lessons for the rest of their lives. They will know how to care for a home a lot better than if they didn’t have chores while they were growing up.
When you make out your list for the chores, include days and times that you want them completed. If the kids know when they need to perform their duties, the chores will more easily become normal parts of daily life.
Keep on them until they get used to doing their chores consistently. Ensure that they understand that it’s part of their responsibilities to get their chores done on time.
Some parents like to have inspections to see that the chores are done properly. If they’re not done satisfactorily, you must re-teach how to do them or re-do the task with a checklist of what is done first, second, and so on to make completing the tasks easier. Do the chores with your children for at least two weeks. This gives you bonding time and models to them how the task is completed.
Q: How do we institute an inspection? I think that might be the way we would want to go.
A: You can set the inspection up after each one of the chores, at first. Give them ample time to complete the task. (Time the task the first two weeks — how long does it take with both of you? Double that time when they complete it on their own.) Then check to make sure that it is done correctly.
Q: I can’t wait until I discuss this all with my husband. He’ll be pleased that we can use such positive parenting ideas and teach our children good lessons for the future. Is there any specific way that you advise to teach our children how to do the chores properly? I want to make sure that they do them right.
A: The best way to teach them how to do the chores is to show them yourselves for about two weeks. Depending on the difficulty of the chore, show them how to do the chore all the way through so they can learn the process you desire. Then, stay with them the first time or two that they do the chore themselves to ensure that they remember how to do it. Offer encouragement and help the entire time. Model teamwork!
Q: Ok. We’ll start doing that right away after we make our lists for each of the children. All this information is so beneficial. Does it work for other parents when they are having problems with getting their children to cooperate with the chores?
A: Yes, it has helped many other parents with getting their family to help with the care of the home. Take your time, and you should be able to get your children up and in gear in no time at all. Play their favorite music to ensure fun, dancing, and smiles!!
Is there anything else that I can help you with before we go?
Q: No, you’ve given me a lot of great information. This will definitely help us a lot in getting the kids to cooperate with the household chores and still be able to have fun as a family.
A: Great! Life becomes so much easier when everyone helps out and there is more time to spend as a family doing fun things together!
Do you need help getting your kids to do chores?
If you or a loved one is looking for ideas on how to get your kids to participate with the family, send them them my link for scheduling a free 25 minute session where you can get another person’s perspective on how to tackle everyday issues.