7 Simple Chores for Toddlers

Housework can be a daunting task for a family, whether you are a stay at home mom, or a duel income household, or a busy single parent, household chores always seem to sneak up an take over at the most inopportune moments.  However, in my discussions with other parents I have found that very few parents require their children to do household chores! Research by Sandra Hofferth, found that children between six and twelve years of age spend an average of just under three hours per week on housework (and almost 14 hours per week watching television!). This pattern of behavior begins from a small age and only gets worse as the child ages. Child participation in chores are beneficial to both the children and the parents in these situations.  For parents, it's a small part of the stress relieved, if only partly, and for children  there have been numerous studies to show the benefits of this responsibility for children. Some benefits of chores for children are:

• It teaches the children life skills in which they can become more efficient and competent with over time.
• It instills values within the children.  It shows them that they are part of the family and they have some stake in the family and household as a whole.
• Research shows that children who participate in household chores feel happier about themselves and their place in the family.  Chores instill a sense of self-worth in children which can carry on long into adolescents.

Now having your child become efficient in the chores they are assigned will take time, and a lot of supervision.  There are several things you can do to help ensure and expedite their competence in the chores they are assigned.

• Start young: waiting until your child is 5,6,7 etc years old may make it difficult for you to establish the routine.  Other maladaptive behaviors, such as excess TV watching, may have already taken hold and are rather difficult to change.  I suggest starting at a young age around 18 months to 2 years, with age appropriate tasks and then adding to the difficulty as your child ages.  This will help to ensure that helping around the house becomes a "habit" and you will be less likely to have excessive resistance as your child ages.
• Do the housework together.  This is especially important when your little one is learning the tasks, remember no one is born knowing how to do chores.  Show your child how to do the chores, and then let them do it in front of you. Make sure to provide instruction and reinforcement throughout the process. Remember it will NOT be perfect! Also, if you have a designated time when the family does chores, you will find less resistance from your child.  If everyone is doing chores, or doing the same chore there is a sense of "oneness" that will help to motivate your little one to continue the tasks.
• Make sure to keep the tasks manageable. Only assign your child tasks that are age appropriate, it doesn't make sense to have your 18 month old put the dishes in the sink when he can't even reach it yet.  Keeping tasks manageable will help reduce frustration and will set your child up for success, which will then allow for more opportunities for reinforcement and therefore increase the likelihood of the behavior occurring again.
• Whenever possible, try to make the chores fun. Have a race to see who can pick up the most toys the quickest, or who can clean the most dishes.  Children love games, and if you can "trick" your little one to think they are playing, they will be more likely to jump up when asked to do chores.

So here are some chores that I think are pretty common for young children (as demonstrated by my daughter).  I have also put the ages at which we started doing these chores to help you decide what chores are appropriate for your little one.

1. Helping with laundry (2+ years): We only have her help with her laundry and it's very basic. She will carry her laundry basket (a simple pink square bin) to the laundry room, and will then carry it to the couch for me to fold.  She would love to help fold but that ends up being too much of a mess, so she will sit on the floor and hand me the clothes to fold.  If she is in the laundry room when the wash finishes she also helps me put the wet clothes into the dryer

2. Put dishes in the sink (2+ years): After each meal when she gets off of her chair she takes her plates and cups and puts them in the sink. She LOVES this.

3. Throw away trash (18 months+): She does this with her napkins after meals or with any food wrappers.  I also ask her sometimes when I'm picking up around the house to throw things away for me.

4. Help with the yard work (3+ years): So this is new chore we have added, and it is very basic.  She doesn't do actual yard work she just helps with some basic stuff. We have a very large piece of grass in the backyard and when my husband mows the lawn with the ride-on mower large clumps of grass are left behind.  These lumps of grass can kill the grass, so when we are outside picking up the clumps she will help us and she gets SO excited to be doing "big kid" stuff.

5. Making your bed (3+ years): The bed does NOT look perfect. I don't expect it to either.  I mainly want her to put her sheets and blankets on the bed in an organized manner along with her stuffed animals.  I mainly don't want them all over the floor or in a huge pile on her bed.  We get varying levels of organization, but the important part is she tries hard.

Like I said, or goal is for moderate neatness at this stage...but she is having fun!

6. Putting her toys away (18 months+): We started this very young as a basic necessity.  I couldn't keep up with all of her toys and I was going crazy continually picking up after her.  So I started having her clean up on her own.  At first it was just putting items in their box, and initially I had to hand over hand prompt her to do it and provide continual praise and reinforcement.  Once she became independent in the task I faded my praise to a more normal level.  Now as she has grown the cleaning up toys has progressed to cleaning up her room.  Every toy has a place and after she is done playing with her toys she is supposed to put them away.  If she doesn't then she needs to clean her room when she is done, so she gets to decide if she wants to clean up a couple small messes or clean up a giant mess. It's all up to her!

7. Cleaning up her messes (18 months+): This one is pretty basic. From the age of 18 months if she would spill her drink I would hover her a towel and tell her to clean it up.  Of course initially I would show her and then hand over hand prompt her to do it with lots of praise.  Now she is able to independently getting the kitchen towel herself and cleaning up without even telling me she spilled!

So that is my list of chores for young children.  Let me know if you have any additional chores your little ones do at home, I am always looking to add where I can, because she LOVES helping around the house.

UPDATE:  We have recently purchased this Melissa and Doug magnetic chore chart to help us keep track of Isabella's daily chores.

It's a really cool design, there are several different chores for you to pick from, with corresponding pictures for the non-readers.  And there are two blank slates for you to write your own chores in so you have some flexibility.  And there are a TON of smiley faces with things like 'awesome", "good job" and "you did it" on them.  My daughter absolutely LOVES this board and loves putting her "stickers" on after each chore.  The way we have it worked out is if the majority of the boxes are filled out by the end of the week she gets to pick a prize from the treasure chest.  I basically just took an old cookie jar and filled it with little toys from the dollar store, and this has been enough to motivate her.  For older kids you could use it as a way to keep track of earning an allowance.  I decided to put it on our family command center so it's in the middle of our kitchen which is the family hub of our home. That way everyone can see what she has done so far that day....her favorite thing to do is show her daddy once he gets home from work.  If you would like to purchase this chore chart, or one like it they have a bunch on amazon.com and here is the link to this specific one.