Chores

Have You Done Your Chores? By the age of four, your child should be making at least a small contribution to the family as a whole. Assigning—or better yet, letting your child choose—a job to do around the house reinforces the value of coope...

Kids, Allowance, and Chores Financial Building Blocks According to the same survey by Zillions, about three-quarters of all allowance recipients (of all ages) were supposed to perform chores to get their allowances. Some parents give allowances ...

Are you preparing your child to be independent? Teaching your child life skills is not only important for self-care and sufficiency— it also allows him to feel empowered, works on socialization and reasoning, and helps develop healthy self-este...

Dealing with Procrastinators to Get Chores Done Once you decide to implement chores, the battles begin. No self-respecting child is going to want to work! Here are some tips for making it go smoothly. Be clear that this is a positive step in rai...

Assigning and Charting Chores When you're assigning tasks, you might choose to simply rotate responsibilities, you might decide to give each child (and adult, too) an area of responsibility, or you might do both. There are advantages to each app...

The Importance of Chores Here's the reality, and American society's dirty little secret-many kids don't learn how to wash their clothes, cook a meal, mow a lawn, make a bed, or even effectively wash a dish until they've moved out of the house. (...

Type in the date, chore descriptions, and names on this interactive chore chart printable to get kids involved in helping around the house. ...

Getting Kids to Clean Their Rooms Cleaning is not an intuitive skill. Nobody is born knowing how to attack a messy room and turn it to serenity. Few of us can effectively wield a broom, dust pan, or dust rag without a lesson or two—and a lot o...

Bicycle Tire RepairMaterials Tire repair kit Bowl or pail of water Directions If you have punctured the inner tube of your bicycle, you can easily repair it yourself. Buy a bicycle tube patch kit from a bicycle or hardware store. It contains adh...

Window CleaningMaterials Glass cleaner (or vinegar and water) Paper towels or dry cloths Small, portable stepladder Soft brush Directions Offering your services as a window cleaner will bring you plenty of customers. You should offer to clean wi...

Getting kids to clean their room can be a tricky task — in part because they feel overwhelmed about where to begin. Use this step-by-step visual checklist to help guide kids through the process and get in the habit of tidying up! ...

Snow or Leaf RemovalMaterials Snow shovel Whisk broom Leaf rake Yard broom Large bags Directions A snow-shoveling service is in great demand in those areas of the country where winter snowfalls are the rule rather than the exception. Be availabl...

More Than a Chore: Getting Things Done the Right WayThis isn't about treating your children as slaves, piling tasks on their small shoulders and seeing how much they can handle. Neither is it about treating your children as employees, paying them...

Brooms, Brooms, BroomsTime 10 to 20 minutes Materials Various kinds and sizes of broomsA dustpan Directions This is a clean-up activity that is both practical and interesting. Gather as many kinds of brooms as you can find, such as push brooms, k...

This list of age-appropriate skills will help prepare your child for each stage of his life as he develops from preschool until the day he flies the coop. ...

ConsequencesTime 5 to 10 minutes Materials Plastic containersPaint Clay or play dough Directions Children can be lazy about putting craft materials away. You can help to drive home the importance of deciding to clean up properly by setting up an...

Make a Chore Chart: A Worksheet for KidsA busy home functions best if household chores are shared, and doing chores helps children learn responsibility, teamwork, and practical skills. Materials Utility knife Sheet of poster board or paper Marke...

Sort the LaundryMaterials LaundryDirections This is a great activity that will give your child some household responsibility and teach a very practical skill at the same time. Show your child how to sort the laundry before you wash it. Even a ve...