Time For Chores! Sort Your Life Out

Encouraging children to help around the house sets them up for adulthood, while allowing them to feel competent and responsible in the here and now. Kate Farr reports.

While many of us are fortunate enough to have a helper to relieve us of daily household chores, outsourcing all of the domestic drudgery can have some unexpected disadvantages. For kids who are accustomed to always having ‘Auntie’ around, the university years, and the subsequent forays into independent adulthood can come as a pretty rude awakening. Ultimately, it falls to us parents to ensure that our kids turn out to be productive people, rather than pampered princes and princesses. The good news is that you can start teaching life skills to even the tiniest of tots, simply by having them near you as you and/ or your helper go about your daily chores. Older kids, meanwhile, are capable of doing practically any household task that you can do, as long as they are given plenty of guidance. The first step is to make sure children know exactly what they’re being asked to do. Start by showing them how to do a specific chore, like loading and unloading the dishwasher, and then monitor their progress until you are certain they can do it unattended. Make your expectations clear and demonstrate how you'd like even the simplest tasks to be done. Second step, establish a regular schedule. Start by giving children a few simple tasks to complete, then add to the list once these chores have become part of their daily routine. As always, be mindful about the need for balance: children need the opportunity to acquire valuable life skills by helping out at home but they also need plenty of time to do their homework and have some fun.

TAKING CHARGE By the time your children reach their teens, they should have a regular roster of household tasks to tackle without supervision. Examples include vacuuming, stripping the sheets from the family’s beds, and even cleaning the bathrooms. This helps to build trust, and sets a benchmark for cleanliness for your soon-to-be-independent young people. In addition to helping out around the house, a chores list for teens should provide them with the oppor tunity to take responsibility for themselves and their things. Encouraging teenagers to be tidy (particularly in their bedrooms) can be challenging, but here’s a smart hack – introduce them to the wonderful world of Stacey Solomon, the empathic organising consultant, who hosts popular British TV show Sort Your Life Out. Solomon and her team have some genuinely helpful and relatable de-cluttering/ tidying tips that can benefit everyone, including the messiest teen on the block. Solomon’s basic mantra? Sort your possessions by category, keep only the items that you absolutely love or need, and donate, sell, recycle or toss the rest. Adopting Solomon’s method results in tidier living spaces, no doubt, but there’s more to it than that. The realisation that items they no longer want – clothes, gadgets, furniture – can be given (or sold) to someone else can be a big one for teens, inspiring regular clear-outs and an altruistic mindset. Teens like to be in charge, so it’s a good idea to reflect this in their chores list by asking them to take care of other family members. Tasks like babysitting younger siblings and making their school lunches, watering household plants, and feeding and caring for the family pet, empower teens. They realise you feel they are responsible enough to have someone (or something) depend on them. Whether your teen is a dab hand in the kitchen or completely disinterested in the culinary arts, a cooking course that covers all the basics can be a wise move, equipping them with the tools they’ll need to feed themselves in the outside world. Designate one night per week for your older teen to take charge of feeding the family, meaning that they get to hone their skills while you reap the benefits. Speaking of rewards, pocket money can be a major motivator for teenagers, especially if they are saving up for something really special. While bribing children with cash to get them to do their chores is not recommended, a small cash reward can be a little extra incentive for them to go above and beyond at home. Make it clear that hard work will always be rewarded – at home in the here and now, and also in the future, in the form of bigger pay checks.

CHORES FOR TWEENS Tweens become increasingly independent and, from around nine or 10 years, they can tackle many core household jobs, such as cleaning surfaces, washing up, emptying bins and sorting the recyclables. This serves to reinforce the message that a clean home takes some effort, and that ‘the rubbish fairy’ doesn’t actually spirit their discarded wrappers away. It will also stand them in good stead for maintaining shared student accommodation in the years to come. When it comes to kitchen duties, you can start by involving tweens in the process of packing their own lunch. Make an event of this by choosing a new lunchbox together (bento boxes or stackable tiffins allow for lots of different flavours). Then make a ‘menu card’ of options that includes plenty of fresh fruit and veggies, a protein, a carbohydrate and something sweet. Kids can ‘place their order’ for the week ahead by ticking individual items from each category. Then, they can help you shop for ingredients at the supermarket. If time allows, a regular themed food day is another good way to get kids interested in the kitchen. Ask them to pick a country from a map, then spend some time researching facts about the culture, the people and, of course, the food. The grand finale is to shop for ingredients together and cook a meal from the chosen country to eat as a family.

CONSTRUCTIVE GAMES Toddlers and really young children are like sponges soaking up the influences around them, and at this age, the strongest influence of all comes from their parents. Model the type of behaviour that you would like them to learn and encourage them to help with simple household tasks as early as possible. Sweeping and vacuuming are endlessly fascinating to young children and a soft duster is a safe tool for little hands. Laundry time is another great opportunity to turn a chore into fun. Toddlers love to load washing into the machine (be vigilant for stray Duplo and toy cars) and pass pegs... and sock-pairing becomes a great game when they’re learning to match up colours. Most little ones adore tidy-up games, so ensure that your toy storage is accessible, bust out a tidying song, and encourage them to be in charge of putting away their own playthings. This helps to reinforce the importance of looking after treasured items and soon becomes second nature. Your next point of focus is the kitchen – and the daily chores therein. If you have the space, you can encourage kids to stand on a low stool and get handson with the food prep. Scooping, spreading, whisking and even some carefully supervised chopping allows children to understand how their meals end up on the table, and can be instrumental in broadening a fussy eater’s culinary horizons. By continually reinforcing the message that household chores are everyone’s responsibility, you are giving your offspring valuable life skills that they can draw on throughout their lives. And the earlier you start, the less resistance you’re likely to encounter along the way. So grab your toddler and a dustpan, and get to work.