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Chores – part 1 probably
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Can I just ask a simple question making this part 1 of possibly a few.
Do your children get a chore for a day, a week, or longer?
Why do you do it that way and how have you made this work?
US – Our chores are in 2 area’s meals and daily. Meals are told to each child at the table. The only give me is that the child/ren who make the meal was the dishes – which makes them more accountable to how many they use, which was a problem for awhile. So meal chores are actually different or not up to 3 times a day. Daily chores are on the board and they know which room to clean each morning. We have 1 room which gets a deep clean, and 2 that get just a quick clean. They are to work out who does them between each other.
Is it working? Meal ones usually are just fine and no one really has a word to say. For us the meal chores work good. Daily ones seem like things get missed all the time or they all stand around because one of the leader type children are not up to say ok you do this today and you do that. This is not working great 🙁
Can’t wait to hear your ways and why you think it works for your family best.
We only have 4 children, all girls. And they’re younger than yours – 11, 9, 7, and 5yo.
I assign chores to be done after breakfast and after dinner (lunch). (We’re farmers, so meals are at weird times – 8-9ish am, 2-3ish pm, and supper whenever my husband comes in or when we get tired of waiting for him! Usually around 8 or 9 pm.)
So basically, I prep all meals, serve all meals, and clean up from all meals, unless I specifically assign someone to do that. At the end of breakfast and dinner (again, your lunch is our dinner; your dinner is our supper, ☺) I assign chores. Usually things like dishes, keep laundry moving, sweeping up, tidying up a room, etc.
We tried having assigned chores for a while, but it just didn’t seem to work for us – I guess I like to keep a good eye on each area to make sure nothing gets too far gone or something. I did use intensive chores long enough for one daughter to stop complaining about washing dishes……she’s still pathetically slow at washing dishes, but her attitude is better. (This is the daughter who can’t talk and work at the same time and who just generally goes slowly at most things she does. (She does talk fast, but that’s it. ?)
For meal prep, that’s my quiet time (or so I hope it to be!). Often someone will want to help me because I’m doing something neat (like using a big knife!). And sometimes I allow a girl to help.
Occasionally I do ask my girls to prep a meal, and they usually do a fine job at it.
I don’t know if that was helpful or not!
We mostly have assigned chores for long periods of time. I like trying to have a child who does a good job at a chore, do that one.
Of course we have to rotate so they all learn new things.
We do long periods of time for a few reasons:
1. They truly master the jobs. Doing the same things every day for 3-6 months or even a year (yep, we like 6 mos to a year) means they get fantastically good at what they are doing.
2. I know who hasn’t done their jobs because I know who has what area – I don’t need to check a chart and see who is assigned to what that day or week. I can call out for the right child right away when a job hasn’t been done or has been done incorrectly. Which leads to number 3…
3. I know who needs more training in a job because it is the same person not doing it right over and over.
We recently revamped the chore organization. Each person gets responsibility for a whole room or two (with one exception in the kitchen, I’ll explain in a moment).
- The 14 year old daughter has the kitchen(clear counters, wipe counters and appliances off, wipe out microwave, sweep) and pantry(take items off dryer and 2 shelves and wipe down, replace items, remove food storage buckets and trash can, sweep, replace buckets and trash, take out trash bag to the outside containers).
- My 10 year old son is responsible for cleaning the upstairs bathroom (sink, shower, tub, toilet, floor, empty trash can, everything!) and vacuums the upstairs hall, staircase, and landing. Every day.
- The 9 year old daughter has the downstairs bathroom (half bath) and the dining room (including wiping down table and chairs, sweeping, straightening bookshelves).
- The 7 year old son has the freezer room (pickup, vacuum) and the enclosed porch (pick up, shelve shoes, vacuum).
- The 6 year old son has the living room (pickup, use broom to get things from under the couch that have wandered there, sweep with lightweight vacuum).
- The 4 year old son has the piano room (pickup, sweep with the lightweight vacuum).
The one job in the kitchen that the 14 year old is not responsible for is the dishwasher. That is the domain of the day’s two kitchen helpers. Every day I have two children helping in the kitchen. They do dishes (load and unload as needed) and any cooking/kitchen prep/cleanup (with me). Older 6 kids get 2 days per week in here (age 4 and up). Mason gets 1 day, Samuel is newly turned 2 and tends to come running when he hears the dishwasher open so he helps everyone.
You’ll notice Mason age 3 didn’t get a room. He helps where needed and is learning to do things like vacuum from his wheelchair. Once he’s a bit older he’ll take over a room too and we’ll end up at a point where nobody has 2 rooms.
We’ll keep these assignments for at least 4 months, probably 6. Then we’ll switch.
Ooo, I wanted to chime in one more thing. If you look at the chores my kids do in each room you may think, “But that doesn’t need done every day does it?” For example, does the porch really need vacuumed daily, or the stairs and hall? Does the microwave need wiped out daily? Does the wood floor need done daily in the piano room, a place where there is never any food?
I submit to you that the answer is YES for two reasons. First, because in some of these jobs I have pretty young children who, even with their best effort, are not going to sweep or vacuum an area as completely as an adult. By doing it daily they will catch things with the vacuum or broom today that they may have missed the day before. Second, I say doing all their chores daily is best because it creates a very strong habit/routine and they are much more likely to do the whole job. If I were to assign my 10 year old to only sweep the bathroom once a week he may or may not remember to do it. It’s not a habit with enough momentum. However when he does it daily the momentum is built to carry him down those tracks and do all the things in the bathroom that need done. Things don’t fall through the cracks because there is no moment of question in his mind of “Should I sweep the bathroom floor today? Has it been a week yet? If I’m not sweeping then what do I do next?”
I hope that helps clear up more of the reasoning behind how we do it!
My DC are 13, 10, 8, 5, and 16mo. We recently started a new system. We switch jobs every day, so every other day they do one of two chore “lists”. Two children are in charge of cleaning the table, loading/unloading the dishwasher, putting away leftovers, and cleaning the kitchen. The other two are responsible for picking up the living room, dining room floor, and bathrooms. They also sweep and mop as needed (all these areas are laminate flooring). Once a week, they are responsible for deep cleaning the kitchen and bathroom (depending which area is their responsibility for the day). They tidy up their areas after each meal. This has really helped keep our house company ready (if we are doing these consistently). 😉
The rest of the jobs, I assign them to help or do them alone.
They help with our pets, laundry, and garden/yard as needed. Sometimes I assign a child to watch the toddler…almost always while I’m making dinner. They also tidy up the family room (schoolroom/playroom) at the end of the day. Eventually we’ll add some more chores (like bedroom clean-up), but this is our current “habit” to establish before we add in the rest of the house. DH and I wanted to start on the most public areas of the house as we often have people drop by (he’s a pastor).For reference I have all boys, ages 15, 14, 11, and 9. They each have 4 assigned daily chores and 2 weekly chores (done on Saturday). The bathroom is divided into 4 jobs so they each do 1 bathroom chore daily (usually). They do them for 6 months and then we switch. The oldest 2 have the ‘harder’ chores although 11-year-old will be starting some of them next rotation. When they first get the new chores my husband or I walk them through each chore, every day for the first week or so. Then we follow them while they do it (we watch) for another week. After that we check in on them daily. The chores are written on index cards and each kid has a small envelope (think library check-out card pocket) that sits in a magnet box on the fridge.
(We took Tristan’s system and morphed it! See her explanation above as to why because she explains it well.)
15-yr-old currently has: Daily – wash big dishes (pots and pans), fold one load of laundry and put away the communal things like towels, wipe down the toilet (on Saturday he scrubs the inside too), sort the kids laundry into the baskets in the laundry room. Weekly – sweep living room and mop kitchen.
14-yr-old: Daily – wash and dry 1 load of laundry, clear the table after every meal and replace tablecloth as needed, put away the things in the “downstairs basket” (all the things we find upstairs that belong downstairs go in a basket in the living room and he empties it once a day), empty the garbages. Weekly – Brush the dog.
11-yr-old: Daily – wipe the bathroom floor, empty dishwasher (before breakfast), take recycling out, pick up the living room. Weekly – clean under the couches, wash the dog.
9-yr-old: Daily – wipe bathroom sinks and around the top of the tub plus put out a clean hand towel, clear off schoolroom table, dust one room (different room each day). Weekly – wipe bathroom mirror, sweep the kitchen.
They choose (negotiate with each other) which chores they want when we switch but the parents make sure they learn new chores each time. I need to modify/update some of them next time around. Additionally, each person makes their bed and puts their dirty dishes in the dishwasher. I teach cooking on the fly and ask for help with meal prep as needed. They usually make their own lunches and about half their own breakfasts. Additionally we have ‘chores for pay’ – AFTER their regular chores are done they can choose to do extra chores which have a specific monetary amount attached to them. Some weeks they do a lot, others nothing extra gets done.
@ Tristan- How many times during the day do your children work on or check their cleaning areas? How long do the ones in 5 to 10 yo age range work at a time? I’ve been rethinking our chore system… Thanks!
Once per day for cleaning the ‘rooms’. Generally in the morning. The kitchen helpers work all day as needed (so just before meal times).
The room work for each child takes between 10 – 20 minutes for most kids, the 9, 10, and 14 year old are 20 minutes for sure. If they dawdle things take longer of course, but my kids have mostly learned that it’s better to just dive and and get it done.
We don’t have assigned chores, we just work together. We have a morning routine, which includes a checklist for what needs to be done in each room, as well as specific chores that are done each day. (Monday is take out the trash and wash the bedding, Tuesday is vacuum, etc.) After each child is done their breakfast and personal care, they just join in to whatever is next on the list until we are all done. We have a deadline of 9am. If everything is done by then, there will be time for TV or computer later in the day. If we waste time in the morning and don’t get done by 9am, we don’t have time left for screens later.
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