Does your child help out with chores? If not, they should. Chores not only teach responsibility and teamwork, but they also lighten your work load so that you can spend more meaningful time with your children doing fun activities.
While you obviously shouldn’t turn your children into slaves, there’s also no reason your kids should sit around all day while you wait on them hand and foot like a maid. Instead, get your children involved!
Not sure what your young children can do? Here are several chores your young children can (and should!) be doing, broken down by age group.
1-2 Year Olds
**Note: All of these will be with help, but young children LOVE to help, and if you teach them from a young age, they will be much more likely to continue to help out as they get older.
- Put toys away in toy box
- Put clothes in hamper
- Throw small pieces of trash away
- Return plastic toddler dishes to kitchen
- Put clothes in washing machine/Take clothes out of dryer
- Take clean silverware from dishwasher and put it away (After you remove the knives!)
3-4 Year Olds
- Wash windows and mirrors
- Dust
- Put clothes in washing machine/Take clothes out of dryer without help
- Empty the dishwasher (may not be able to put everything away, but can stack items)
- Help make dinner
- Put their clean clothes away
- Wipe up spills
- Water plants
- Feed pets
5-7 Year Olds
- Make their beds
- Fold laundry
- Take small bags of trash out
- Vacuum the floor
- Clean their own rooms
- Set and clear the table
- Replace toilet paper roll
We love these printable chore cards you can get right here. Choose the right chores for your kids, print and cut!
Whether you assign chores using a chore chart or you simply ask your children to help out with whatever tasks that need to be done, it’s not the number or exact chores that your children do that matter. What does matter is that your children learn to be helpful, responsible and giving, instead of entitled, selfish and spoiled. As long as they are learning that, that’s all that really matters. And these chore lists are a great way to teach them!
Do your children do chores? What jobs do you have them do?
Teacher turned work-at-home mom, Brittany loves using her words to help people improve their faith, marriage and parenting. And with one awesome husband and two very rambunctious little boys, she’s always got a lot to say! In addition to writing for Love and Marriage, she also owns her own site, Equipping Godly Women, where she regularly shares helpful tips, tricks and encouragement to help women be the amazing women God created them to be.
