Growing up, I had lots of chores to do. Make my bed, do the dishes, clean our bathroom, dust the house when company was coming—I was expected to do all of these things on a regular basis. And although I didn’t love doing them at the time, I’m thankful now that my parents charged me with getting these tasks done.
According to connectedparenting.com, there are lots of good reasons for giving your children chores. First, doing chores teaches them important life skills. (Like how to cook a simple dinner and do their own laundry.) It also teaches them how to be better team players and fosters independence. Perhaps most importantly, sharing the workload with your children helps everything get done faster, leaving your family with more quality time to spend together.
BUT…how do you actually motivate children to get their household chores done? (Every parent I know wants the answer to this question.) One way, says scholastic.com, is to post lists of chores kids can do and reward them for accomplishing tasks. So, we’ve come up with a very comprehensive chore list that can be used to track what gets done during the week. My suggestion is to assign one point for each checked-off chore, so children can try to earn a bunch by the end of the week. How they redeem those points is up to you! Download the chore list here.