Training Children How to Do Chores

[HS Mom in NC]

I get private messaged now and then for details about training kids to do chores and chore rotations. It's happened again. There was a thread on this several years ago that I can't find now.  So as to give the person asking and boardies a lot of ideas to choose from, I'm going to start new one. 

 

If you require your children to do chores:

 

1) Why do you have your children do chores?  This is really a philosophical question, but I think when you're clear on why you're doing something it can help you stay motivated through the inevitable challenges along the way. Has your philosophy changed over time? How and why?

 

2) About how old were they when you taught them how to do each kind of chore?  I think it's useful for parents undertaking chore training to know at what ages other people have successfully taught  specific tasks to neurotypical children.  If your child isn't neurotypical let us know how you worked around their special circumstances. Anything else that comes to mind on the is topic or a related one is helpful too.

 

3) Describe the process of teaching them how to do different chores. What kinds of phrases did you say?  How did you teach them to break larger chores down into smaller tasks?  What kind of "inspection" did you use to let them know they were done?  What kind of reinforcement did you do for a job well done or a job poorly done?  Anything else that comes to mind on this topic.

 

4) What kinds of changes have you made throughout your parenting related to chore training?  What were your best changes and why?  What would you do differently  and why? What resources, products or other materials have been most helpful to you? What were duds?

 

I'll post my response later because it's going to take me a while and I don't have the time until later tonight.

[IfIOnly]

We do bedrooms and housework before school. Otherwise, it just doesn't get done or is an uphill battle. I'm finger picking on an iPhone so can't get real specific and lengthy.

 

After breakfast (and EVERY meal :)) we all do a kitchen chore.

2 year old puts the cloth napkins in the laundry basket

6 year old puts away the dishes.

8 year old clears (we all clear our own plate though)and wipes the table.

10 and 11 year old and I rotate each meal: sweeping; putting away leftovers and high chair; and, washing dishes.

Then after each person finishes their chore they go tidy the living room. Meal chores are done after the living room is picked up. It takes us 10ish minutes after each meal to do this.

 

 

After breakfast clean up we brush our teeth and hair (and I do my makeup) then we do ten minute and room tidies.

 

Then we do 10ish minutes of house cleaning. Everyday we have different areas we work on but the living room and hallway get vacuumed pand bathroom counters get wiped pretty much everyday. We all work.

 

My kids are quite competent and confident helping around the house. They also love to cook. I owe much of this to my awesome dh's encouragement and help with teaching them how to do the various jobs!

[IfIOnly]

Dp

[kbutton]

http://www.amazon.com/Children-Who-Do-Too-Little/dp/1933523239

 

I love this book. We have two steps forward and one back around here, but this book is a great read for figuring this stuff out. It answers the questions the OP asked, gives typical reasons why people struggle in this area with suggestions on how to work through them, and it has lots of ideas from actual people about how to make chores work for your family (the philosophy is that there is no one right way or that all families will function the same way).

 

I have one child that is a work horse and one that is not, and they both have some exceptionalities. They require a longer period of handholding/modeling and longer follow-up. The biggest issue is that their best on one day is not the same as their best on another day (inconsistent performance even after a task is mastered), so we have to manage their expectations as well as our own and know when to step in to help them succeed. 

[hornblower]

I teach chores because our view is that we're all crew on this little metaphorical ship & everyone contributes. We  do have a persistent problem with our ds wanting to be a passenger & he gets flack for it. Just a few minutes ago I was telling him this isn't a cruise ship, I'm not the entertainment director & there is no all inclusive buffet.... One year I hope it will percolate into his teenfog brain. Or I'll throw him overboard ;)

When kids were little, they watched me & helped as much as they could. Even though that meant it slowed me down, & they made things messy or wrong, they did it & I took it in stride. They cooked, cleaned, folded laundry, swept etc. with me & then gradually, once they could do it, they did it on their own.

For more complicated jobs like "clean the bathroom" I made NASA like checklists which broke the job down into each step (I had to do it myself first & then write it down. In the process I figured out slightly more efficient ways of doing things. Things like spray the toilet with the cleanser first. Let it sit while you gather up the towels & bath mats & dump them outside the door. Spray the shower down. Let that sit while you go back to the toilet which now can be scrubbed out & wiped down... )   The first couple times the kid would get the checklist, I'd do it with them & talk them through it. Then they did it on their own.  The checklists were taped to the inside of the cupboards in the bathrooms & the kitchen.

By the time the kids were in their teens, I split the house into zones & each zone gets a 'thorough' and a 'quick & dirty' once a week. They got to pick their zones (living area, kitchen, bathrooms) & we negotiate when it gets done.

I do all the floors everywhere because the dogs are my responsibility & they're 99% of the floor dirt....

Everyone does their own laundry since, hm, I can't remember exactly but for sure once they hit teen years.

That's about it.

I don't pay for chores.

It's not about obedience or respect. It's about teamwork & making this entire thing 'work' by pulling together. 

You live here, you do stuff. I expect people to do what needs doing.

Most of the training has been not how to do it but to notice that it needs doing, kwim? ds again is a bit oblivious & will just walk over & around things instead of picking up etc. because he expects the housekeeping staff to magically appear.

Oh & their rooms are their own responsibility - again, since about tween/teen. I don't care what it looks like, just that bedding is washed regularly & that I can get in to vacuum the floor. Every few months I offer to assist & I stand around with a giant garbage bag & a goodwill box & make suggestions about what to put in which pile but that's about it...


 

[strange_girl]

Timely thread ;)

 

I will be following this. My kids do chores, but I'd like to get them more involved in my everyday routine.

[HS Mom in NC]

1.  Do what you're able to do.  Competence builds confidence.  Work first, then play. Help carry the load because many hands makes light work. Contribute to the communities you're in.   Take care of what you have. Clean up your own mess.  Help clean up other messes. Regular maintenance pays off much more than irregular maintenance.  Learn good habits early and practice them regularly.  Master basic life skills before you become an adult.  Learn to follow through.  Learn to meet expectations of others.  Learn to take constructive criticism. Be pro-active, not reactive as much as possible. Life is full of boring tasks, get used to it or make a game of it.

Our chores are not linked to allowance. (Forgot to put that in the OP) Adults don't get paid to clean their own living spaces or maintain their own possessions. Salary and wages are not the only measure of value and are often not accurate measures of true value, so I never want to send the message that the only reason to do something like chores is for financial gain. I don't think it's inherently wrong to link them or that linking them with necessarily create those attitudes we just choose not to for that reason.

 

Our philosophy hasn't changed much at all.

 

2.  

 

18ish months-picking up toys and putting them back in the correct place (bin/shelf, etc.) under constant supervision.  If they have the manual dexterity to take it out and play with it, they can put it back.  This requires a simple lidless container or an adequate space on a shelf for most things. Keeping the number of toys out at a minimum usually helps avoid overwhelm.  Owning fewer items or rotating smaller numbers of items available at one time helps a lot. "Can you put that in here?" while pointing to the item and the place it goes is often necessary.  Lots of positive feedback helps too, but I think praise can be used manipulatively and I don't do any gushing after the kid is getting the hang of it.  "Good job." and "You're a good helper." are usually enough to get them through to the end of the job.  I also take a moment when the job is well done to say something sincere like, "You did a good job.  Look at this room.  Now that it's put away we have space to fill in a few activities the child likes to do in the space. It looks so nice too." I do this because I want to verbalize the idea that there is satisfaction in a job well done. 

 

When they aren't cooperating and when picking up isn't a new idea, I'm willing to force it because I don't want the idea to set in that doing chores is optional or anything to get upset about.  If, after clear instruction repeated twice in a pleasant tone doesn't get them to do it, I try to keep my tone neutral and I put my hand over their hand and force it to pick up the item and put it away.  This has happened a few times.  There was crying.  I don't care. I force them to pick up an item or two that way and then ask, "Do you want to put it away yourself or will I have to make you do it with my hand?" So far my kids would rather just finish doing it themselves. I suggest parents have in mind, before the job starts, what they will do (in keeping with their parenting philosophy) if the child doesn't comply.

 

2 ish-Putting away plastic place settings.  Someone older unloads the sharp and breakable items first.  Then the 2 year old unloads the plastic plates and puts them in a lower cabinet (I rearrange my kitchen for this.)

 

3 ish-Putting away their own clean laundry and putting their dirty laundry in the correct hamper.  I have pictures of what goes in each their drawers (limited strictly to socks and undies) on the front of the drawer. We hang everything else. 

 

I also have pictures of what goes in each hamper (I have a walk in closet in my master bed/bath suite. I printed out pictures of clothes and gave the kids crayons.  I handed one kid a small picture with various items of clothing on it with red and pink crayons.  "Color some of these pink and some red." When that was done I handed them another small picture with various items of clothing on them with a dark blue, grey, black, purple and brown crayons. "Color one thing dark blue.  Color another thing dark purple. etc." Then I had a printed page with various items of clothing that we didn't color at all.  Then I explained that dirty laundry is a sorting game.  When they got undresses to take a bath I had them sort the clothes into the hamper with the matching pictures taped to them.  They were 3 and 5.  It was fun to them then. If you don't have space for that many hampers between laundry days, you can have them sort it all out by taping the pictures to the wall and putting the clothes in piles under them. 

 

Like I said, we hang everything else. It takes some time, but we taught the middle kid at 3 to turn pants and shorts right side out and put them on a hanger. You just have to show them slowly once, have them give it ago, show them again, have them try and before long they can hang up clothes.

 

At this age mine got their own little bucket with a couple of nice microfiber cleaning cloths, a small spray bottle with just water or with watered down cleanser in it.  They also got a feather duster or similar type cleaning wand.  Kids love feather dusters.  They will dust all kind of things with it including the cat.  Cats like feather dusters too. At this stage they get closely supervised dusting assignments and spray the front of the cabinets and counters and dishwasher and oven and fridge with their spray cleanser and cloth while I clean the tops of those things.

 

4ish and 5- By this age we didn't see the need to limit how many different toys they had access to at once.  We had a playroom by then and introduced the idea of breaking a big job down into smaller, easier tasks. There several game type approaches to this one:

 

a) Program the robots.  Explain to them that they are robots and you need to program them to do chores.  We had them line up in the space that needed to be cleaned up and pushed their imaginary robot buttons on their tummies while saying things like, "OK, robot.  You're picking up the books and putting them on the shelves."  Then to the next kid, "OK robot, you're putting the doll things away." When each kid is done they come back for the next assignment.  Theatrics are appreciated.  If they use robot voices or movements, all the better.  It's a good coping mechanism for life-turn boring tasks into something a bit more fun by making it more of a game. 

 

If a kid complains about the robot thing because that kid has a personality or habit tendency of complaining, tell them the truth in a matter of fact tone. "We're going to clean up now.  We can make it more fun by playing a robot game to do it, or you can just clean it up.  You pick which way you want to do it for yourself."  Whichever they pick is fine. Some people don't like to play pretend or games.  That's OK too. They still need to be making progress.

 

b) Colors in a paper bag.  Those colors can be represented by small pieces or strips of colored paper, colored tokens or small single color items.  Explain to the kids you have a lots of things with a different color on each one.  They're going to close their eyes, reach in, and pull one out.  They're going to put away all the items that have any amount of that color in any shade on it. Once they get it, they give it to mom to keep out of bag and they get to work.  They line up and pull them out one right after the other until all kids are busy with their color assignments.  When they're done they come back in line to get their next color assignment and keep going until everything is out away.

 

c) Category cards. I went to free coloring pages and found images of: a closet with the clothes hanging neatly in it, a canister vacuum, a trash can and recycling bin, books on a shelf, toys on a shelf, a hairbrush, a bed, various clothing items, a sink full of dishes and bubbles, art supplies, and anything else that represents a category of things that need to be put away.  I shrunk them to about 4X6 inches or so and printed them each out on a different color of  cardstock.  I also typed out what they meant: hang up clean clothes and put them in the closet, vacuum the carpet, put your trash in the trashcan, put the books on the shelf, put they toys away, put hair items away, put dirty clothes in the laundry hamper, put your dishes in the sink, put the craft supplies away, etc.  I printed them out and glued them under their matching 4x6 picture.

I do various things with the cards.  I fan them out facing me and have each kid draw one as her assignment. When she's done she gets to pick another one. Sometimes I let them take turns picking a chore of their choice with the cards facing up then the next kids picks the one of their choice from what's left and continue on that way until they're all gone.  The kids choose the order they do each category card.  They have to finish one before moving to the next.

 

d) Shapes.  You can either randomly say a shape or you can have a way of drawing a shape at random (cards, in a paperbag, etc.) "Pick up everything that has a circle on it."  "Pick up everything that has a square on it"......Come up with your own way to break down a big job into smaller tasks.

"Put away anything with wheels on it."...

 

I have a rule my kids have only dared to break twice: If you aren't diligently helping clean up during clean up time, it means you need more practice.  I'm cold hearted enough to send all the kids diligently cleaning up off to play and the kid who wasn't diligently cleaning up gets to finish all of it on her own.  They didn't think I'd really follow through on that threat.  They think it now. I even say that to kids who guests/relatives when they have to help clean up here.  None of them has challenged me yet.

 

This is the time to start having them help you do the chores along side you.  "Help me get these things off the bathroom counter, please."  "You wipe down  that side of the counter while I get this side." "Whoops!  Missed a spot.  Get it.  There you go, looks good." "That's a hard one to get off, but keep rubbing it, you'll get it.  There you go, good job." "I'll get the inside of the tub, you wash the outside. " 'I'll vacuum under the couch and up against the walls, you do the middle of the room."

 

Again, take time to articulate something that shows satisfaction with a job well done.  Say out loud that when people help each other, it makes it easier on everyone.  That may not be true at this stage because it usually is easier to get them out of the way and just do it yourself but that will mean you'll always be the one doing it.  This stage is an investment of your time that pays off in the long run.

 

6ish-Unloading the dishwasher, (Regular dishes go in the lower cabinets in the kitchen)   vacuuming entire rooms with a canister vacuum, mopping (a lightweight spray mop with disposable pads are good for kids this age if you can afford to buy them) cleaning a bathroom including cleaning a mirror with a squeegee, pet care, etc.  All regular household chores including some meal prep.

 

When a kid is just being lazy or difficult and won't do a good job I make them redo it and do an additional chore because they obviously need more practice. If there are enough people doing chores and there's nothing that needs doing, I'll give a yet to be done chore assigned to a child who is generally doing a good job to the kid who's doing a crappy job.

 

Now's the time to implement the chore charts. 

 

8ish-Their own laundry.  Explain and demonstrate how to use your washing machine and dryer.  Keep a step stool around.  Some kids with short arms won't be able to do this yet.  Have them ask someone with longer arms to put it in the dryer for them.  The short armed kid can start the dryer and put the laundry away. Be prepared to demonstrate several times over a few weeks.  Be prepared to answer questions about whether or not a particular piece of clothing goes in a particular load. 

 

10ish-12ish-Preparing and cooking a few simple dinners.

 

That's it for now.  I'm going to bed.

[Heidi]

Dp

[Heidi]

The way it's been for the last 3-4 years is like this: when a kid turns 5 they get a daily chore, basically to keep the main living area of our home clean. Pickup, sweep, and/or vacuum a room. Sometimes it's once a day, sometimes multiple times a day, depending on what's going on. They have the same room for a week and then switch. I usually set the timer for 20 min and if they work hard the whole time and still need time, they're good. If they goof off the whole time and wait until the last 5 min to clean and aren't finished when the timer goes off, they get an extra chore, usually laundry.

Once a week we do the other rooms: playroom, bathrooms, bedrooms. I reward the day of hard work with a movie.

My littles do not have regular chores, but I do have them clean up messes they make, just not on a regular, daily basis. I wait until 5 bc I don't have the time or desire to train a younger kid.

My chore has always been the kitchen. However, I think my oldest is getting old enough to start cleaning the kitchen so that might change soon.

I also have a bigger house that needs cleaned more often, so I'm thinking about listing extra chores on the fridge that they can do to earn some money.

 

So that's how I do it, keep it as simple as possible.

[HS Mom in NC]

4) I bought Don Aslett's Is There Life After Housework? and made sure I knew how to clean the way he recommends because he owned a successful cleaning business. To succeed at that you need to know how to clean very well and very quickly. Kids have short attention spans so teach them to do it as efficiently as possible.

 

I wrote out every task that needed doing and how often (daily, weekly, bi-weekly) and grouped them in to fairly equitable sublists based on the number of people in the house who can do chores.  Then those sublists are assigned for the month.  Each month I change the name of the person who had to do each sublist. It's posted so everyone has no excuse for not knowing what they're responsible for.

[Momof3]

I get private messaged now and then for details about training kids to do chores and chore rotations. It's happened again. There was a thread on this several years ago that I can't find now.  So as to give the person asking and boardies a lot of ideas to choose from, I'm going to start new one. 

 

If you require your children to do chores:

 

1) Why do you have your children do chores?  This is really a philosophical question, but I think when you're clear on why you're doing something it can help you stay motivated through the inevitable challenges along the way. Has your philosophy changed over time? How and why?

 

2) About how old were they when you taught them how to do each kind of chore?  I think it's useful for parents undertaking chore training to know at what ages other people have successfully taught  specific tasks to neurotypical children.  If your child isn't neurotypical let us know how you worked around their special circumstances. Anything else that comes to mind on the is topic or a related one is helpful too.

 

3) Describe the process of teaching them how to do different chores. What kinds of phrases did you say?  How did you teach them to break larger chores down into smaller tasks?  What kind of "inspection" did you use to let them know they were done?  What kind of reinforcement did you do for a job well done or a job poorly done?  Anything else that comes to mind on this topic.

 

4) What kinds of changes have you made throughout your parenting related to chore training?  What were your best changes and why?  What would you do differently  and why? What resources, products or other materials have been most helpful to you? What were duds?

 

I'll post my response later because it's going to take me a while and I don't have the time until later tonight.

 

Thanks for the thread! :) I have been *so* helped on this topic by the Hive. 

 

We are just beginning our chore journey...so I'm coming to the thread with more to glean than to give...but I few things I've found helpful so far:

 

1) My "why" for chores...

• I have four small kids all close in age...and I'd like to have more. ;) I maintain my personal/practical sanity only by reminding myself that I won't be doing *all* of this forever...
• I didn't do enough chores growing up. Hence, I am a bit lazy...and have a hard time motivating myself to get the hateful things done. I am hoping my kids will be different if they view housework, etc. as a natural part of daily life. I also want them to have good character, and learning to do chores is one step in the process...
• I have found that they are actually happier when they feel like they are productive. And I have found that they value their 'free'/playtime more when they also have to work. 
• I enjoy the company. :)
• I'm sure there are more reasons...

2) I have found the lists at charlottemasonhelp (someone on here pointed me there) and the book Children Who Do Too Little by Patricia Sprinkle (my mom gave it to me) extremely helpful. This is pretty much where I turn for ideas on new chores to introduce.

 

Currently, my 6yo is 

• washing dishes
• vacuuming (small entry room and living room rug)
• helping me to complete a laundry cycle (I have to turn the washer on & dump in the detergent, but he collects the dirty clothes, sorts them, and dumps them in the washer...and he transfers the clothes to the dryer w/ a dryer sheet...then I turn on the dryer)
• folding/putting away laundry 
• spot cleaning kitchen floor
• washing glass in front door

5yo is

• vacuuming (using just the hose) kitchen rugs
• washing glass in front door
• setting/clearing table
• folding/putting away laundry

2yo is

• folding/putting away his own laundry (with help/step-by-step instructions)
• sorting silverware
• straightening shoes
• cleaning up his own toy messes

 

We take 30 min after lunch to clean. This has been the single most important thing to me so far - having a time for chores. We do a different zone each day (Monday-kitchen, Tuesday-living room/dining room/entry), Wednesday-laundry, Thursday-laundry, Friday-bedroom). We rotate the bedrooms, so we focus on a different one each week...and I do the bathroom myself at this point. We've had fun working together, I've had fun watching the house stay cleaner...and the kids enjoy staying up an extra half-hour before their naps. ;)

 

4)  :bigear:  :bigear:  :bigear:

[SereneHome]

I was the one who asked OP this question, so thank you Homeschool mom in AZ for starting this thread and thank you everyone for contributing.

 

 

[SereneHome]

Of course, as soon as I decided to start implementing some of the ideas, they all got sick!

[SparklyUnicorn]

This is all too complicated and really not how I operate.  When something needs to be done I ask my kids to do it with me.  I also don't have a ton of things that need to be done.  For example, I don't care if my kids make their bed or keep their room spotless. 

 

 

[SereneHome]

This is all too complicated and really not how I operate.  When something needs to be done I ask my kids to do it with me.  I also don't have a ton of things that need to be done.  For example, I don't care if my kids make their bed or keep their room spotless. 

 

I was thinking about that, but I realized two things. 

 

1 - I would like them to be active members of the family and have consistent jobs.  I think it's much easier to do things when asked vs knowing that something is YOUR responsibility. 

 

2.  I am trying to get the point across that we all have things that we have to do and they come before things that we want to do.

 

May be I am over thinking this too much.  I just keep having visions of them living in my basement when they are 40 bc they have no clue how to take care of themselves or anything else.

[Btervet]

This seems really complicated for me too, but mine are still really little.

 

I ask/require my kids to help me whenever I have a task I am doing around the house. As they get bigger, they take over tasks they are able to do. I try not to look at anything as a "chore" because that automatically puts me in a negative mood, which I'm sure rubs off on my kids. I just look at it as things that need to get done. We have a lot of conversations about how no one *wants* to do these things, but they need doing, so we should try to make the process pleasant instead of complaining about it. We sing songs, play games, race, or anything else I can thing of to make it an enjoyable part of life.

 

I do NOT gives rewards for this work. It is just stuff that needs doing. I do often point out why it needs doing, so it is obvious. We are in a small house, so toys need to be put away for many things to happen (TV watching, bigger games, room to roll around on the floor, etc). Laundry needs doing so there are clean clothes. Dishes need washing so we have clean dishes etc. I do often ask my 4yo if he thinks it's would be nice to make me do all that works, and he agrees it wouldn't be nice most of the time and sees why he should help.

 

My almost 5 year old does the following independently:

Cleans all toys up 4-5 times a day. His and his little brothers. 

Vacuums stairs and corners with handheld vacuum.

Clears kitchen table, puts napkins/towels in dirty hampers.

He can mostly clean any messes he makes.

 

He helps me with the following:

Laundry - bringing to laundry room/loading/unloading. Just learning folding. Too little to carry upstairs to put away.

Loading dishwasher

Unloading dishwasher

Cleaning bathrooms - he scrubs behind toilet, baseboards, tub, corners, and any other low/hard to get to place.

 

My 1 year old is learning to put toys away, put clothes/napkins/towels in dirty hampers, and 'clean' surfaces with a towel.

[barnwife]

This is all too complicated and really not how I operate.  When something needs to be done I ask my kids to do it with me.  I also don't have a ton of things that need to be done.  For example, I don't care if my kids make their bed or keep their room spotless. 

This made me smile. I did not have many chores growing up. But one was to make the bed. I hated it, really, really hated it. It made no sense to me. Why make the bed? I was just going to sleep in it again in 12 hours or so. 

 

So one year I asked to be able to skip making my bed for one day as my birthday present. I asked for nothing else. 

 

My parents said no. I thought "what in the world do they think is going to happen if I don't make the bed for 1 day? Do they think the world will end?" And I decided that when I grew up (I was 10 or 11), I'd only make the bed when I wanted to.

 

Once I left for college, I stopped making my bed on any sort of regular schedule. After college, I started making it slightly more often. 

 

Now, I never make our bed. (There always seems to be a napping kid in it.) 

 

I have nothing else to add to this thread, as our oldest is not quite 5.

[Χά�ων]

I was thinking about that, but I realized two things. 

 

1 - I would like them to be active members of the family and have consistent jobs.  I think it's much easier to do things when asked vs knowing that something is YOUR responsibility. 

 

2.  I am trying to get the point across that we all have things that we have to do and they come before things that we want to do.

 

May be I am over thinking this too much.  I just keep having visions of them living in my basement when they are 40 bc they have no clue how to take care of themselves or anything else.

 

I think you might be over thinking this. Truly I do. My son is in 5th grade. Aside from cooking HEALTHY meals every single meal, I am pretty sure he could take over and run the house for the most part. It is not something I expect of him but he has worked along side me his entire life and knows what to do.

 

For household things I included him from a young age. He was eager to help with laundry, so he did. Repeat with everything. Talk through your thought process with various things. For example say you notice the trash can is getting full. Instead of silently taking it out talk out your thought process. "I am trying to throw away something, it barely fits. The trashcan is full. When the trashcan is full the bag needs to be taken out. The bag needs to go into the large trashcan in the garage." Then do it with them at your side.

 

They will make many messes. It will progress at a snails pace. They will learn. They will get it. 

 

My son can and does do laundry. He can and does cook. He can and does do dishes. He can and does take out the trash. The child can organize and tidy up any area. He does better than I do, truthfully. But there is not a set schedule. He does not take the trash out once a week, he takes it out as needed. Laundry is as needed. Sweeping and vacuuming is as needed. But I have a new vacuum that I am not yet willing to share so he does not get the privilege of vacuuming. :)

 

We do family house tackles where we clean together. I turn on the music or an audio book and we go for a couple of hours. He is better at somethings and I am better at others. We tend to naturally gravitate towards our strengths. But the house gets deep cleaned in a very short time and he can do everything needed to keep up the house.