Household Chores: Should Children Help With Them?

 Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog!

    As you may remember, I am currently a student in the early childhood education program at Humber College. Throughout this program, I have been made aware of many issues concerning the overall development of children that should be discussed openly. 

    There are few things I truly believe in and one of them is that kids are our future.

 So, shouldn't we want the absolute best for them?

    Children deserve a loving and nurturing environment to grow, learn, and develop in. As they slowly grow older, parents start introducing and encouraging them to take part in household chores. 

    According to Simon Worthington, a published writer for the Daily Mail, 76% of children between the ages of 6 to 17, do not help out with any household chores.

    Including children in household chores will impact their social emotional developmental domain in a positive way. Encouraging and allowing children to help out will introduce them to crucial life skills that will allow them to flourish in the future. 

    There are many beneficial reasons to include children in household chores. One of them being their need for life skills. As pointed out by Chrissy, a full-time mom, in the blog post, 11 Guilt Free Reasons to Get Kids to do Chores at Home - Yes, Really, the one main thing schools do not teach is life skills.         

    The ability to keep a home requires skills that must be taught such as, cleaning a home, shopping for the home, and cooking in the home. Some of these life skills should be essential but, they are not so now society has left it up to the parents to teach them how to take care of themselves. Do you think it is fair for schools to not teach the few skills that everybody would end up using throughout their lifetime?

    Another beneficial reason to include your children in household chores is that it can enhance and further their overall development. During the ages of 4 to 6, children are still working on recognizing and labeling their own emotions. Those skills are apart of something called social emotional development. It is one out of five areas or domains of development.

    Encouraging and allowing them to participate in household chores helps them to develop a sense of pride. Accomplishing a task that would typically be meant for an adult gives a young child a boost in their self-esteem when they finish the task. As stated in the article, Household Chores for Children, on a parenting website, "when children contribute to family life, it helps them feel competent and responsible." (para. 4)

One example scenario would be if a parent and their 5 year old child were staying at home for the day, the parent may decide to finish some household chores. The parent would then be presented with a choice, to either do the chores themself and allow the child to sit around and play the whole day or to show the child how to do simple chores for their age and help out. 

   

Some chores that would be appropriate for the five-year-old child as stated on the parenting website, raisingchildren.net.au, include

• helping to sort clean clothes by family members
• helping to set the table before a meal
• helping to prepare a meal with supervision

 Now you may ask yourself, how can I encourage my children to take part in household chores? 

    There are a few different ways for parents to encourage and influence their children to help out with household chores. According to James Lehman, a writer for Empowering Parents, in the article, I'll do it Later! 6 Ways to Get Kids to do Chores Now, creating a reward system for your child will work wonders as long as the reward is worth it to them. 

    For example, if your child has no real interest for screens such as, a t.v. or a tablet then offering more screen time would not be convincing. If they enjoyed being outside then depending on the chores they complete, you could offer than 10-15 more minutes of outside play time. 

There are many reasons as to why parents should consider having their children participate in household chores but ultimately, it is their decision to make. Allowing children to participate in household chores is not only beneficial to the child but also to the parents because as the child starts learning crucial life skills, the parents can admire and celebrate as they practice those skills. As a future educator to young children, I do believe it would be in a child's best interest to develop these life skills early on not only to further their development but, also to set them up for success in their futures.

Thank you all for reading!