Being there for your kids - How to Handle Chores in Your Household

Episode Date: July 27, 2019

In a healthy family, chores are not only essential to family functioning, they provide opportunity to show responsibility, pride, cooperation, and negotiation. Children even as young as 18 months can participate by helping to put up stuffed toys. As your children get older, chores get more involved. When you get blowback about doing chores, use your active listening skills to help calm your child down. After their emotional fever has subsided, get input about how they want to complete the task. Not doing chores is not an option, but how and when they are done may be. Make chore completion a fun thing. Crank up the music. Do each of your chores at the same time. Saturday morning? The celebrate with a fun activity afterwards. Doing family chores together is both essential, relationship-building, and chock full of teachable moments.

Hi, I'm Dr. John Robinson, and this is Teachable Moments. Are chores by family members a good thing? Oh, yeah. They are not only a good thing. They are essential to family functioning and provide a sense of pride, responsibility, and accountability for all. Ella is 18 months old. Older sister Jade is five, and oldest brother Nate is eight. Some parents would give Ella a pass at her age regarding pitching in with chore completion. Not me. When children developmentally gain eye-hand coordination, depth perception, and gross motor control, they can have the necessary skills to begin pitching in. At first, of course, mom and dad need to help Ella put her stuffed animals in the toy box. Show her how. Ask her to show you how.

If she hesitates, make it a challenge with a good old reverse psychology. I bet you can't put that teddy bear in that toy box. Then move to a challenging time frame. I bet you can't get all these toys off your floor, and in your toy box by the time I count ten. Of course, heap on praise with success. Jade is old enough to add emptying all trash cans to her list of chores. Approach her from a big girl perspective,

and that trash duty is her part of keeping the house neat and clean as a family. Nate has already learned to try putting his chores off. I'll do it in a while. Let me finish this project first. Joey wants me to come over and play. Can I do my chores after I get back? The appropriate healthy parent answers are now, no, and no. All kids are more likely to accept their chore responsibilities if everyone is doing their part at the same time.

Make Saturday morning's family chore time. Put other activities contingent on chore completion first. If kids speed through their chores, check their quality and add a pitching-in component to chores so that helping out with others after completing your own is part of the family task. Some parents attach monetary value to chore completion as incentive. I discourage that tactic as it promotes divisiveness and expediency while detracting from pride, cohesion, and family values. However, if kids want to propose contracts for non-chore jobs, such as grass-cutting, babysitting, and the like, some parents don't want the hassle of kids complaining, dragging their feet, starting fights,

and other distractions from the task at hand. There is always resistance to something new. Use your active listening tools, get permission to give them your rationale, and make chore assignments a part of an initial family meeting to set the process up. Get feedback and give kids' chore options, depending on age. Doing chores is not an option, but what you do as your chores can be negotiated. Are chores a part of healthy family life? Oh yeah.

They build character, responsibility, pride, and family togetherness. Go for it. I'm Dr. Jonathan C. Robinson, licensed clinical psychologist and Christian author of Teachable Moments, Building Blocks of Christian Parenting. And this has been Teachable Moments. Teachable Moments, Building Blocks of Christian Parenting is available online at AmazonBooks.com and in local and national bookstores. More on Dr. Robinson at TMC-P-I-N-C.com.