Assigning Chores to Toddlers and Preschoolers
I’ve often found that one of the big challenges to working at home is getting the housework done at least adequately. When you really enjoy your work it’s hard to step away even when you know you ought to get those dishes done.
But I’ve also found that my kids are a great help. They’re 5 and 2, and very good about helping with chores. It’s just a matter of keeping things at their level.
Both help to empty the dishwasher, for example. The trick I use there is pretty simple. Their dishes are plastic, and so they can put them away in the drawer. Once again, low enough that they can do this easily. They also know to put the silverware away, except for items such as sharp knives.
They also help to sort the laundry. My son is still mostly nonverbal, but he does understand everything we tell him, so he is quite good at sorting the laundry. He grabs and item and I tell him which pile. My daughter of course already knows where most things go and only occasionally has to ask. They also like to help load the washing machine and push the clean, wet clothes into the dryer.
I have a cordless sweeper
that the kids love to use. It doesn’t work as well as a vacuum, but for those small daily messes that I don’t want to haul the vacuum out for, it’s perfect. And it’s very light, so the kids can use it, and shuts down if it catches anything it can’t cope with. It’s actually hard to get my son to quit using this, as he loves it. They also love to use brooms, but they’re only sufficiently effective outside where they don’t have to worry so much about exactly where the dirt is going.
My daughter is old enough that she occasionally gets to wash dishes. Obviously these are not the ones that need heavy scrubbing or might break easily. But she considers it a real priveledge yet.
Certain aspects of meal preparation are also pretty kid friendly. Making salads, for example. Kids love to tear lettuce. Mine are much prone to sampling along the way, but at least they are snacking on something healthy. I also let them put the veggies that I have chopped into the bowl.
Quite possibly the most challenging chore for the kids is cleaning up their toys. They love helping me. It’s cleaning up after themselves that they resist. It’s probably the only chore they actually consider to be a chore to get done.
I think the difference is that it’s their job, not having fun with Mommy or Daddy. If one of us helps to clean, they’re a bit more willing. But if we are trying to do our own housework, they don’t want to clean their toys. I don’t know how your kids are about it, but mine don’t let many tactics work more than once. The fast clean was tremendous fun one day, but never since, even though my daughter loved being done so quickly.
I would like to hear from other parents how you get your younger children to clean. I don’t just mean the helping chores – those are relatively easy. You can talk about them, of course, if you like. But what about the ones they don’t enjoy so much but really need to do?
Thanks for the suggestions! My wife and I are having our first child in August and we’re trying to get tips where ever we can for later down the road.
Gosh, good reminder. It’s so easy forget how much kids need to be family team members and gain that sense of their own competence. Also, when they’re helping you, they’re NOT getting into something else!
Good for you, getting your kids on the chores. It’s so easy not to include them, because it goes faster if you don’t–but it pays off in the long run. My kids (6 and 3) each have a morning routine, which they wrote up themselves and illustrated. The littlest one starts a load of laundry (with some help) and wipes down the bathroom counter. The older one lets the ducks out of their nighttime enclosure and feeds the fish.
As for cleaning up their own toys, you’re right–it’s more challenging. We have a few games we sometimes play, that sometimes work. For instance, we like to take a deck of cards and each child draws one. They pick up however many toys the card “says” to pick up. When they’re done, they draw another card. It can be competitive–see who can collect the most cards. But my kids get stressed when they compete, so we just see how many cards they can collect together.
But the bottom line is, the only thing that “works” in the long run for us is consistency. When the house gets to be a disaster, it’s difficult to feel motivated to clean up. But when they have a routine–such as always cleaning up one toy before starting another, or always cleaning up before bed–it goes faster and is less painful. That doesn’t mean they don’t require lots of “encouragement”–they do–but it does make it easier.
Thanks for the great post!