Children, Chores, and Drudgery

By the time children are about 7, most parents have begun to think, “It’s about time she did a little work around here!” and the battles begin. “When are you going to feed the dog?” “That garbage needs to be taken out right now!” “Honey, how many times do I need to ask you to make your bed!”

It’s good to expect children to take part in the work of the household! Children are quite capable, and can feel a lot of pride in a job well done. But, like us, they acquire feelings about the jobs they’re expected to do. And when those feelings are negative, children can drain a lot of their parents’ emotional capital on the way to completing their household jobs!

So how can parents set it up so that children do take responsibility for the work of the household? I think there are two main keys to keeping the drudgery out of chores for parents and for children.

All Work is Worthy Work

Our customary attitudes about household jobs can create strong allergies to chores. Because of generations of housework being done mostly by women who felt and were unappreciated and certainly underpaid, feelings that don’t have anything to do with the actual work of cleaning or taking out the garbage get passed on to us through the generations. Simple jobs that have their simple joys—the warmth of the suds in the dishpan and a happily feasting dog, for instance—feel to the grownups like work that isn’t worth an intelligent person’s attention. So no wonder that, when we ask our children to do those jobs, they don’t respond well. Our attitude is contagious, and children catch it as soon as it becomes “their” job.

We parents need to do our best to respect ourselves as we do the work of the household. We need to do our best to notice the rewards of the jobs we do. The jobs we do are necessary. They are worth doing well. They are worth our attention.

Do the work together!

Part of the problem with chores is that as we grew up, we were made to do our chores alone. So without thinking, we expect our children to do their chores alone, and on our time schedule.

Children aren’t designed well for solitary work. They’re designed for fun, for collaboration, for being noticed. They’re designed for absorbing your presence as you notice their skills and their accomplishments. Watch your four-year-old jump from the arm of the sofa into the middle of the living room carpet again and again while company is over. Watch a 7-year-old race a friend to the end of the street, and turn around to see if you noticed who won, and how fast they both went. Your child is showing you that there’s plenty of energy for tasks when they’re fun, when the child has choice about the timing, and when someone is there to see them as they do it. Praise is less important than simply being seen and acknowledged.

So getting jobs done together works much better than sentencing children to solitary work. Rather than, “Please take out the garbage,” try, “Can you grab one end of this sack? It’s really heavy!” and opening a conversation about what might be in there. Getting pairs of family members to tackle tasks together, or having one ten minute period when everyone does something that needs to be done in the household can keep the feelings of isolation from settling in and turning jobs into drudgery.

Here’s How Children’s Attitudes Can Change