When do you start requiring your children to complete chores and really pitch-in, so to speak? Right now everyone has miniman chores. Emma who is almost nine is responsible for keeping their (the four older girls') bathroom clean, with the help of her (almost six) sister. And all four of the older ones are required to put away their own laundry, clean their own room, and put their own dishes in the sink.

The reason I bring this up is: Emma and Helen (the almost nine and six year olds) have been asking me coooonstantly if they can "help" me. I'm one of those people who doesn't "like" help. Not that I care how something is done, as in, "It has to be done MY way or no way at all". It isn't that... I just find that things go faster if I just do it myself, ya know? BUT, I *KNOW* it would be good for them to pitch in more, I just don't know what to allow a nine and six year old to do.

I've allowed Emma to make breakfast several times now; pouring out cereal and milk, making toast, that kind of thing. So, I'm looking for advice and wondering what you all allow.

When do you start allowing your children more household responsibility, and WHAT do you allow them to do? I'm really interested. Thanks in advance for your thoughts and sharing how you do things!

Wow Jen, If I didnt MAKE my kids do chores they'd sit on their butts doing nought, or run around in a whirlwind leaving a trail of disaster in their wake for ME to clean up. My girls are almost 11 and my son is nine and they do everything from washing dishes on a rotation basis (no set routine, I just say who did the dishes last, require honesty, demand it and whoever's next is doing them that night, or afternoon or morning etc etc), they clean their bedrooms, hoover, wash the floors, general tidying up, folding clothes, hanging clothes to be dried... uuum what else? Julie has been wanting to make dinner with me, but she likes to do her own thang and she is fingers almighty in that she digs her fingers into everything, flour, sugar, gooey stuff... so I dont always require her '[whatwacko]help[whatwacko]' so much. The only thing they dont really do just now is make their lunches for school. They help me out with just about everything else.

I do NOT like to be the one to do everything. Im just the opposite to you. They MUST help me out bc otherwise they'd be lazy little monkeys and I cant abide that... I dont put up with sulking either, which we had a problem with but I nipped that right in the bud. We got a sweet thing going now, even if it looks to be more organised chaos then anything else. To me this is a family affair.

I'm a lot like you Jen in that I don't like help with stuff. Particularly in my kitchen. I can't stand to have someone else cooking in my kitchen! Lol! [whatwacko] Drives me insane!!!

But all 3 of my boys have responsibilities they tend to. Nothing major but things that I think they need to learn to do for themselves and that help me out.

ALL boys: Ages almost 7, 5, and 2 1/2

(1) Put laundry in laundry basket in utlity room every night after baths.
(2) Empty bathroom garbage every night into main trashcan in utlity room (they take turns on who carries the bag (never much, usually just a few tissues & occasional empty shampoo bottle)
(3) Daily beds made before we leave the house
(4) Daily before bedtime pick up all toys and have room clean - bigger boys vaccuum theirs if needed & often Cash's if he needs it
(5) Weekly dusting in their bedrooms (I do pictures on walls and tv but they always wipe off their toyboxes and their dressers - even Cash)

All boys take turns helping me with dusting coffee tables and book shelves in living room. All boys help set the table at night. All boys put their plates in sink after meals. Those aren't necessarily chores but they are responsbility things that I feel they need to be taught.

I do all the bathroom cleaning because I bleach everything. I know it's bad but I just don't feel safe and clean unless I've bleached stuff we touch all the time. Lol. Same with mopping my kitchen and bathroom floors. I just have to use bleach!

The boys do however use wipies now to wipe up any pee peee dribbles on toilet seat. Cash taught them this! Hooray for clean 2 year olds!!! :-)

I generally sweep and vacuum every evening after dinner while they are in their baths so they don't help with that often, but I will let them if they want on weekends and like I said, they do their own bedrooms throughout the week as needed and I touch up everything on weekends.

I do all the laundry. Washing/drying and folding but everyone is responsible for putting theirs away. And they are getting much better at it. Even hubby does a good job with this now! [claploud][claploud]

When they are older I may let them help more with food prep and cooking but for now I don't feel like any of them are mature enough to do it without well, making it even harder on me. Lol.

I'm a lot like you Jen in that I don't like help with stuff. Particularly in my kitchen. I can't stand to have someone else cooking in my kitchen! Lol! [whatwacko] Drives me insane!!!

But all 3 of my boys have responsibilities they tend to. Nothing major but things that I think they need to learn to do for themselves and that help me out.

ALL boys: Ages almost 7, 5, and 2 1/2

(1) Put laundry in laundry basket in utlity room every night after baths.
(2) Empty bathroom garbage every night into main trashcan in utlity room (they take turns on who carries the bag (never much, usually just a few tissues & occasional empty shampoo bottle)
(3) Daily beds made before we leave the house
(4) Daily before bedtime pick up all toys and have room clean - bigger boys vaccuum theirs if needed & often Cash's if he needs it
(5) Weekly dusting in their bedrooms (I do pictures on walls and tv but they always wipe off their toyboxes and their dressers - even Cash)

All boys take turns helping me with dusting coffee tables and book shelves in living room. All boys help set the table at night. All boys put their plates in sink after meals. Those aren't necessarily chores but they are responsbility things that I feel they need to be taught.

I do all the bathroom cleaning because I bleach everything. I know it's bad but I just don't feel safe and clean unless I've bleached stuff we touch all the time. Lol. Same with mopping my kitchen and bathroom floors. I just have to use bleach!

The boys do however use wipies now to wipe up any pee peee dribbles on toilet seat. Cash taught them this! Hooray for clean 2 year olds!!! :-)

I generally sweep and vacuum every evening after dinner while they are in their baths so they don't help with that often, but I will let them if they want on weekends and like I said, they do their own bedrooms throughout the week as needed and I touch up everything on weekends.

I do all the laundry. Washing/drying and folding but everyone is responsible for putting theirs away. And they are getting much better at it. Even hubby does a good job with this now! [claploud][claploud]

When they are older I may let them help more with food prep and cooking but for now I don't feel like any of them are mature enough to do it without well, making it even harder on me. Lol.


I'm the same way about bleach... and my favorite disinfectant is Isopropyl... so we generally have about a zillion bottles of it in the house. That dries out skin, so I don't let the kids use either of them. So, like you... *I* wind up doing all *that* kind of cleaning. I'm glad I'm not alone there. I think *most* mom's utilize the extra hands, which I think is GREAT! I wish I could be MORE like that!

Thanks Gen for sharing, I love having multiple views and opinions! This is great~ :)

Liam and Fiona (5 and almost 4) are responsible for:
cleaning up their toys
clearing their dishes from the table (they put them in the dishwasher if it is empty)
taking their laundry to the hampers/laundry room
put away their own clean laundry (not always though...sometimes I just do it. Liam is better at it than Fiona)
Liam waters the plants
Fiona feeds the dog

Also, I am more often having them help with these things as well:
empty the dishwasher (I do knives, and they stack dishes that go into higher cupboards on the counter for me to finish)
sort laundry and fold tea towels
wipe the table after eating
sweep/vacuum (these ones are less often as they just aren't very efficient yet)
move laundry from the washer to the dryer and the dryer to a basket

Right now, I'm teaching Dainie who's 3 1/2 who to fold her own laundry. She also sets the table. She's supposed to pick up her toys daily, but we've been having problems with that one...

She also can dress herself, put her clothes in the hamper. We don't have a dishwasher, so I end up doing all the dishes in the hottest water I can stand, so she can't help, but she does do some drying and I let her sort the silverware. She loves to wipe and I take advantage of that on things a lot. And she is also to give the dog water every day.

Working on picking up with Moriah. She's a young two yet so the going is slower than I would like.

I do NOT like to be the one to do everything.

This is me, too! I was reading in Mommy, Teach Me! and the author is a former Montessori teacher. She says there are basically "windows of opportunity" that are best for teaching certain things in the preschool years, and service and helping out are one! She claims that if you utilize this window of opportunity and allow your children to help out when they think it is fun, they are more likely to develop a heart of service as they mature and helping out at home may not be such a "battle."

She suggested putting dishes in a lower cabinet so even youngest children can help put clean ones away. She also says this can help train/teach them how to carefully handle breakables, so helps teach/develop self-control. DS turned 3 in November. He used to love to help me vacuum, and even though it would slow me down terribly, to me it was definitely more important to allow him to help and it wouldn't hurt to slow myself down a little, KWIM? But since he was recently diagnosed with a dust mite allergy, it's best for him not to help with that now, so when we moved a few weeks ago, I made sure our plates and bowls went in a lower cabinet and that has replaced the vacuuming help.

I have gotten slack about getting him to help on a day-to-day basis, but other things he has been "responsible" for helping with have been feeding the pet and putting away his toys, putting dirty clothes into the washing machine when I do laundry, which sometimes he almost insists that I allow him to do this [rotfl] (began teaching him as early on as possible to help put away his toys, and other things have come as he's shown interest in helping at around 2 years old, I guess... so as "responsible" as little ones so young can be, but more of helping out at this stage).

I just need to get more consistent now that we are moved with having him help out each day!