A while back, I posted some parenting tips about chore ideas for kids – 20 ideas in fact. Now that the school year has started, I need to get more organized as far as household chores go, or I will end up doing all of the work myself.
My children are busy little people – much busier than I was at their ages. Between school, homework, and activities they have precious little time to spare. So, while I do not want to burden them down with added work, I think the responsibilities of maintaining a home offer valuable life lessons that kids need to learn.
The key is to offer up manageable tasks. A few chores that I have delegated to the kids are
- Bringing their dirty laundry to the laundry room and putting away their, clean, folded clothes.
- Setting the dinner table – everything from napkins to cups filled with milk or water.
- Clearing the table.
- Cleaning up the playroom.
- Taking out the garbage.
- Unloading the dishwasher on occasion – when they happen to have a little extra time in the morning.
The weekends are a different story because they are so unstructured. As a family, we often tackle a different area of the house or the yard as a group.
Now don’t get me wrong, this post makes us sound a bit like the Brady Bunch minus Alice. But I assure you, there is a fair amount of complaining and bickering going on – it just wouldn’t be normal any other way. “How come he gets to do that?”, “How come I have to put that away when I didn’t take it out” – and many more similar outbursts are common.
What chore ideas for kids do you have now that the school year has begun? I would love to hear them!
Blank chore charts are always useful for keeping track of what the kids are actually getting done. Here is a printable chore chart that I created that is free for you to download.
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