chores for kids - Stuff Parents Need

Friends, please enjoy this really helpful guest post from a fellow mom blogger. She’s got some great tips, so take note before you go buy that Responsibility Chart! 🙂

Hi! I’m Brandy and blog at MommySplurge about having a healthy connected family and enjoying the good stuff (including reviewing subscription boxes)! When Tiffany asked me to write a guest post, I thought to myself, what is it that parents need? Besides sleep, time, and stuff that makes our lives easier and happier, having a clean home – and teaching our children to assist us in that never ending chore – is always pretty high on the list. I thought I would share my best ideas and advice for teaching toddlers and preschoolers to assist in household chores.

My kids are two and four, and while I don’t believe they should be responsible for cleaning my home, I always need a little help in that area and want them to understand the work that goes into it so they can help keep it nice too. I want my kids to be ready for responsibility when it’s time for them to really pitch in. Responsibility is something that must be learned, not foisted on them 5 years from now. The earlier you start small children with chores, the earlier they will become actually helpful.

While I include some specific chores for preschoolers and toddlers, I want you to take away some ideas on how you can incorporate chores for kids organically in your routine. My advice is realistic. Your two year old isn’t going to load the dishwasher even if the Internet tells you he can. Here are my steps as you start to learn what works for your family.

Getting Toddlers & Preschoolers Started on Chores

Step 1 – What do they want?

If they are interested in a cleaning activity, make it safe and have them help. They might not actually get it clean. That’s just fine as long as they are learning a habit! By following my children’s lead I have added washing the table, washing the floor, and using the vacuum to pick up crumbs and other messes to my kids’ chore repertoire. And of course they can’t get enough of dusting! Adding their chores based on your children’s particular interests is a fantastic way to incorporate child-led learning into your household routine. As your routine grows you can begin to add extra chores.

When I do not have a safe non-toxic cleaning product, we just use water or water and soap. And to be honest, it’s cleaner than it would otherwise be! I can’t remember the last time I decided to wash the floor all by myself.

Step 2 – Youngest Wins!

The youngest child capable of doing the task should be assigned the task. I often forget this one myself, but it is important that we give our younger children the opportunity for increasing responsibility as they grow. The easiest way to do this is to assign the task to the youngest one that is capable of it (and available). Don’t worry about the older ones. There is always more responsibility for them to take on as they grow.

Step 3 – Make it a Family Activity

Never clean while your children watch you. Find some way for them to assist you. Having them watch you clean reinforces the idea that the parent is responsible for cleaning everything. There is always a way for them to help. When it’s time to clean, announce that it’s time. Have tasks ready for the kids while you supervise or accomplish things that they really can’t do. By making it a family activity there is less time for you to get grumpy about cleaning, too!

Step 4 – Let them know they are doing a great job!

Praise. Praise for helping. Praise for doing a good job. Tell them how happy they make mom and dad. Praise, praise, and praise some more. If they miss a spot, this is your chance to tell them what a good job they did and can they help wipe this part up too?

Step 5 – Don’t Overthink It

Do not get hung up on a chore chart! It’s a great tool but filling out the chart isn’t the goal. It’s hard for me to be consistent about the chore chart and I decided that being consistent about my expectations for my kids was more important than remembering a sticker.

Chore Lists for Toddlers & Preschoolers

I admit that I once consulted the Internet for chore ideas for my kids and came up empty. Baseboards? Folding Underwear? My life is too busy for folding panties! These chores are age-appropriate and mesh with what most families need to accomplish.

Toddler Chores: 2-3 year olds

Put away toys: children need a lot of direction with this task. Ask them to help you as you put away Mr. Potato Head. Give them one by one directions – can you put the green truck back on the shelf? Don’t expect your toddler to magically clean his room!
Dusting
Washing the floor
Put clothes in hamper
Use vacuum hose or handheld vacuum to pick up crumbs
Wipe up messes
Brush teeth. If you have an older child, she should be able to help your preschooler with loading up his toothbrush.
Throw diapers or other trash away: even very young toddlers can assist with this!
Laundry: toddlers can assist with putting wet clothes into the dryer. If you have a front-loader have your toddler put the dirty clothes inside the drum.
Wash face and hands with wet cloth

If your toddler has mastered this list, then you can move on to preschooler chores.

Preschooler Chores: 4-5 year olds

All Toddler chores plus
Washing the table: they are tall enough now!
Putting dirty dishes in the sink: only encourage this if your dishes aren’t breakable.
Help preparing food: although toddlers can do some helping (my 2 year old loves to stir and to sprinkle cheese), preschoolers really start to become useful in the kitchen at this age. I always have a task for my four year old to complete.
Setting the table: woah, they aren’t doing a formal place setting! Kids this age can get the silverware out and set it at each place. You get the plates out for them. Go slowly and build!
Empty small trash cans: even though toddlers think they like to help with this, it’s usually a little much for them.
Tidying their rooms: this is one of the hardest activities to delegate. We see our kids growing bigger and expect them to be able to help. But when their rooms are a mess you can’t just tell them to clean their room. At this age you don’t have to micro-manage, but they still need a lot of guidance. Try asking them to find all the Legos to put away (a preschooler you might ask block-by-block as you also clean up).
Laundry: if you have a front-loader, preschoolers can take clothes out for the dryer. Smaller kids can put things in but have a harder time with getting them out. Preschoolers can unload the dryer (mine stands inside the laundry basket as she does it!).

th Hill Designs by MommySplurge” href=”http://mommysplurge.com/south-hill-designs/ “>South Hill Designs Artist, and a Stuff Parents Need superfan! She blogs about having a healthy connected family and enjoying the good stuff (including subscription box reviews)!

Today I am reviewing a product that has been helping families get organized together since 1990. It’s called Creative Changes, and they offer a great selection of chore charts and other organizational aides that are specifically designed to get your children involved in helping with home management.

I specifically remember when my parents realized a parenting mistake they had been making and their attempts (which were largely in vain, I’m sad to say) to correct them. I was 10 and my brother was 12. And that’s how old we were when my parents decided that we should get involved in helping keep the house up. Yup….our very first chores were given to us that late in the game. It didn’t go over well. We had no idea why we would be needed to help with things like vacuuming and taking out the trash. That had ALWAYS been done for us.

The chore implementation never really did go smoothly. We started helping out more around the house, but not because my parents were able to successfully hand off any of the chores. We would do what they asked when they got too fed up and yelled for someone to do something NOW! That’s pretty much how it worked.

I definitely don’t want that to be how things go in my house. But if I don’t teach Darah from a young age that she has responsibilities as a member of the house, it will be all too easy for me to take the same path my parents took and just keep doing it all myself.

That’s why I’m glad for companies like Creative Changes and their chore charts that have been working for decades. While Darah is too young to use these charts, it has inspired me to already start talking with her about putting away toys when we are finished, and how cleaning up is an important element on choosing to play with something.

The Creative Changes charts are easy to stick on the refrigerator and make use of dry erase markers so you can re-use them again and again. They make use of pictures to help little ones know what their chores are on any given day. You can also use stickers to help kids get closer to their incentive (if you choose to use incentives as part of your chore assignments).

I will say that the Creative Changes website is in pretty desperate need of an overhaul. It looks very dated, and the commercial on the site looks straight out of 1990. I’d love to see this updated so that potential customers aren’t scared away. It’s fine for a product to be useful for so long, but the marketing techniques need to be changed to speak to new generations of parents! I’ve seen these products firsthand, and want to encourage you not to be dissuaded by the antique look of the site. The charts, themselves, are really helpful and worthwhile, I promise!

Buy it!: You can pick up the Rewarding Kids Responsibility Kit for just $24.95. I think it is money well-spent if you maintain the discipline to really implement it with your kids. You will get some much-needed help around the house, and your kids will start to take on more ownership and pride in how their home looks. They will also develop good habits that their future spouses will thank you for!

Win it!: One lucky Stuff Parents is going to win the Rewarding Kids Responsibility Kit you see featured here! Yay!

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