Don’t you just love it when you wash the dishes and your little girl walks up right next to you and starts wiping the dishes dry without being told? Many parents, however, aren’t that lucky to have kids who are inclined to do household chores. More often than not, kids don’t really like doing chores, and will do or say anything just to steer clear of them. To make getting kids to do household chores easier, here are some suggestions that might help.
Talk to them about household chores
Kids may be kids, but they do listen when you sit them down and talk to them about anything, including household chores. Impress upon them the importance of doing household chores and the importance of everyone in the household pitching in to do them. Make them understand that as a part of the household, they are members of the team, and every team member should do their part. Of course, the household chores you assign them should be age-appropriate, so don’t go assigning a 7-year-old on garbage duty or something as heavy. Have kids that age do something light like wiping the dishes dry.
Make a game or competition out of it
Not all kids understand work, but all kids understand play, and that’s how they should see household chores, at least in the beginning. Start with assigning points to certain chores, and get them prizes or rewards when they reach a specific number of points in a month. That should motivate your children enough to help you around the house without having to tell them.
Switch up routines
Adults get bored when they do the same task over and over again. Can you imagine what it’s like for children? To prevent boredom among kids when it comes to household chores, switch their tasks up. If wiping dishes dry is your child’s task for this week, have your kid do something else the following week, like sweeping the floor or clearing the table after dinner.
Give them a bit of autonomy
When they’ve gotten used to their household chores, they will begin to take pride in their work. I say let them, because it gives them a sense of achievement and of course, self-reliance. The problem with some parents though is that they nag their kids about how to do their own chores right, which is essentially sending them the message that you don’t think they’re not good enough. Instead of nagging them about it, just let them go about their tasks. If you don’t like their results, making suggestions is a much better option than correcting them outright and dictating them how to do it. Kids like a little autonomy, and they’ll appreciate that more.
Kids need to learn how to do chores, because it’s more than just getting them to share the labour load around the house. It’s about teaching them responsibility as well as ways to cope with tasks that they are going to need knowledge of when they grow up and have lives of their own. Getting kids to do household chores is part of our jobs as parents to nurture and guide them.
