Does your child do household chores?


What is your morning routine like?  My son is the first one to get up and that is usually between 0500 and 0600 (dependent on the time of year ie first light!).  From an early age, we have encouraged our children to stay in their bedrooms and read, if they are up before 0645.  This has served us well in the fact that we can get a few extra winks, and they learn the ability to entertain themselves quietly. Most importantly though, it allows them to reach into an imaginary world and enjoy a few more minutes of make believe before the real world must take over.

At 0645 the rest of the family join the land of the living.  We make our beds and get ourselves ready while my hubby makes breakfast.  We are lucky enough that every morning, we all sit together for breakfast as a family.  Once breakfast is cleared, the kids complete their homework, do guitar practice, brush teeth, clean their faces and do their hair.  This is all generally achieved before 0745.  Not a bad way to start the day unless you include household chores...

From a young age, our kids have completed basic household chores.  These chores are age appropriate and include those mentioned in my post yesterday (Motivating my tween or trying too), as well as some of those described in the poster below.  I use the poster as a guide for what our kids can be expected to help with:

Age appropriate household chores

With my son starting to push back more, I needed to remind myself what the benefits were to getting the kids helping out around the house.  Of course, I mean benefits beyond saving me a job or two.

In some cultures, like Samoa, I understand that children come home from school and get straight into chores.  The following clip shows what kids in a Japanese school have to do, and they look like they're having fun!:


So, it's not just a figment of my imagination that there are kids that do chores without being bribed!  A bonus fact for my son, next time he pushes back.  But more seriously, what are the advantages to the child?  There are many research articles on this topic, you only have to put it into Google.  However, the one that resonated most with me came from The Centre for Parent Education.  They  had a great article on the benefits of chores for children.  From my understanding, getting kids to undertake chores teaches kids the softer skills in life such as:

  • Delayed gratification
  • Contribution to the family
  • Responsibility
  • Gratitude
  • Teamwork
  • Self discipline
  • Etc.
So are there any disadvantages?  Again, from what I've read - the disadvantages are kids rebelling against doing chores and following through (aka nagging) to get the chore completed.  That's it!  Surely, that is just part and parcel of being a parent?

Please let me know what your thoughts are on this subject.  Remember, it takes a village to raise a child.

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