How to Get Kids to Do Chores Daily

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Can’t do it all? Me neither. In this post, I’ll share with you all my secrets for how I get my four kids to do chores daily without complaint.

Assigning your kids daily chores will not only help reduce your workload, but it will also help your children to be more responsible adults.

A study done by Marty Rossman, a professor at the University of Minnesota, concluded that children who are assigned chores at an early age have greater success as young adults in college, career and family life.

However, only a small percentage of parents actually assign regular household chores. In a Braun Research survey of 1,001 U. S. adults, only 28% said that they actually require their children to do chores.

Most parents know their children should be helping out around the house. But how do you get them to actually do chores?

I’m going to share some organizational tips that I have used for many years to get my children doing chores every day. I simply announce that it’s chore time and everyone knows what to do.

3 Things You Need to Do First:

1. Let go of perfectionism.

I know, it’s just easier to do it yourself sometimes. But we have to let go of perfectionism. They won’t do it perfectly, but that’s okay.

2. Put in a little time upfront for habit training.

Forming new habits will take some time. But the initial investment of time will pay off later.

3. Make a plan.

You’ll need to have a plan. I’m going to talk about this step in some detail next. Start planning by thinking about when you want your kids to do chores and what types of jobs you want done. This is where we’ll start.

Plan for 4 Different Chore Times

I assign my children household chores in 4 different categories based on when they are done. These 4 chore times are:

1. Morning Chores
2. Meal Chores
3. Evening Chores
4. Cleaning Day Chores

4 Chore Times Explained

1. Morning Chores

Morning chores happen right after breakfast every day in my home.  We do these before starting school and it only takes about 15 minutes.  These include the daily tasks related to getting dishes and laundry done and trash taken out.  I also include brushing teeth and taking vitamins on our morning chores lists.  

I’m going to share lists of the specific chores each of my children do.  This is how we divide up the morning chores:

• 2^nd grader – unloads silverware from the dishwasher, takes dirty clothes from both bathroom baskets to the laundry room, helps mom sort clean clothes and puts away her clothes pile
• 4^th grader – puts away all hand-washed dishes from the dish rack, pulls clothes out of the dryer, switches clothes from the washer to the dryer, helps mom sort clean clothes and puts away his clothes pile
• 8^th grader – unloads the dishwasher
• 12^th grader – takes out the trash

It may seem like my two teens are assigned less work than the younger ones, but this is because they are responsible for washing, drying and putting away all their own laundry.  They do this whenever it’s convenient for them (or when they run out of clothes).

Related Reading: 9 Unconventional Laundry Tips

2. Meal Chores

Having your children help with meals teaches them invaluable skills.  Even a small child can help with kitchen tasks. 

If you have teens in your household, they can learn to cook an entire meal independently.  Actually, my oldest daughter probably cooks better than I do!  

I schedule one of my children to help me with every single meal that I prepare.  It helps to plan the same meals on some kind of regular rotation so they can master recipes and eventually become confident cooks. 

I give younger children jobs like washing produce, mixing salads or measuring rice.  With your supervision, responsible older elementary-aged children can start learning to use a knife to chop veggies or even cook things on the stovetop like ground beef.   

When starting out with more dangerous kitchen jobs, you obviously need to be diligent to teach safety and supervise them closely. 

My meal helper is also required to help with the cleanup after the meal.  This includes putting away ingredients and leftovers.

As a side note, don’t neglect to teach your boys how to cook.  Kitchen skills will definitely come in handy when they are adults, and their future wives will thank you.

3. Evening Chores

Before bed, I have a brief task for each child.  Evening chores only take a minute or two, but it helps me tremendously not to have to do it all myself at the end of a long day.  Here’s the list of jobs my children breeze through right before bedtime:

• 2^nd grader – wipes down the kitchen table
• 4^th grader – wipes down kitchen counters
• 8^th grader – wipes down dining room table
• 12^th grader – loads silverware in the dishwasher

4. Cleaning Day Chores  

We clean the house every Saturday.  At one point, years ago, I tried cleaning one section of the house each day of the week.  The problem was we never got it all done.  If Monday was kitchen day and something came up, the kitchen didn’t get cleaned.  A once-a-week cleaning day works better for me.  We get it done all at once and don’t have to think about it again for a whole week. This is how we divide up cleaning day chores:

• 2^nd grader – mops floors and cleans her room
• 4^th grader – cleans mirrors and sinks in both bathrooms, vacuums 2 area rugs, and cleans his room
• 8^th grader – cleans toilets and counters in both bathrooms, and cleans her room
• 12^th grader – scrubs both bathtubs, including grout and wall tiles, and cleans her room

Cleaning Tip: Use Mop Slippers

Mop slippers make cleaning fun for kids. My 2nd grader sprays the floor with homemade cleaning spray (1 part vinegar to 3 parts water) and scoots around on these slippers. They work fantastic.

Assign Chores

Assign jobs for each of the 4 chore times and give each child a list.

When you first implement assigned daily chores, you will need to have a way for your children to remember what they are supposed to do.  You can make a master list and display it somewhere that everyone can see it and reference it during chore time. Or you can print out a checklist for each child.

Another thing that has worked well for me is to give young children, that can’t read yet, a ring of 3×5 cards with a picture on each card of the chores they need to do.  If they need to put away silverware, I would draw some forks and spoons on a card.  If their job is to take clothes out of the dryer and put them in a laundry basket, draw a laundry basket on a card.  Put all their cards on a metal ring so they can flip through them.  You can even clip the rings on a necklace so your child won’t lose them.  

Make sure you have separate lists for morning chores, evening chores, and cleaning day chores. Once they’ve been doing it for a while, they won’t need their lists any more.  But they are helpful while you establish this new routine. 

Also, make a weekly schedule for meal helpers. Assign one child to help you with every meal you cook.

TIPS That Help

Don’t allow complaining, ever!

If you have a child that decides to complain about chores, then give them extra work to do. Say something like this, “Since you need extra practice doing your work without complaining, I’m going to give you an extra job.” I usually assign them one of my jobs to do.  This is vitally important character training. You are molding their attitude towards work.  It’s not enough just for them to complete the task.  If you allow them to do their work with a sour attitude, this will affect their feelings towards work in their adult lives. 

Divide each category of work into small, manageable tasks.  

Don’t give one child full responsibility for all the household’s laundry or one child all the dishes.  When you break up each of these categories into smaller tasks divided among your children, they won’t get overwhelmed.  For example, the daily job of doing dishes can be broken up into the following tasks: put away dishes from the dishwasher, put away silverware from the dishwasher, put away hand-washed items from the dish strainer on the counter, load the dishes into the dishwasher, and load the silverware into the dishwasher. Assign only one of these tasks to each child. Now, you may have a teenager that would prefer to take over just one job, like dishes, and that’s fine. But for most children, multiple short tasks are better than the daunting prospect of one huge job.

Assign jobs based on age and ability level.

Obviously, you wouldn’t give a 3-year-old the job of unloading the entire dishwasher, but they can learn to sort silverware. Another good job for little ones is to pull clothes out of the dryer and put them into the laundry basket. You know what each child can handle, so divide the work accordingly. Depending on the size of your family and the age of your children, you would assign chores that are age-appropriate to your children and then mom gets the rest of the jobs.  As your children get older, and can increasingly take on more responsibility, you can switch up chore assignments until your workload isn’t as heavy.

Use bribery, ahem, I mean rewards.  

Anytime I introduce new expectations, I make sure to dangle a carrot. I know a lot of moms that use cute reward sticker charts successfully.  Once they get enough stickers for chores completed, they earn a reward.  This never worked for me.  It’s just one more thing to keep track of and it didn’t motivate my children enough.  The thing that works best for us is a small treat. They are willing to go to great lengths to earn a treat.  Once they have been doing the new task for a while, I take away the reward. But a reward is helpful for introducing something new.

Take the time to train them to do it right.  

We cannot expect children to know how to properly clean a toilet or how to operate the dryer.  We have to teach them how to do things.  The investment of time it takes to train them will pay off later when they are able to do their tasks well independently.

Inspect what you expect.  

Don’t just assume that your children are doing the chores that you have assigned to them. You have to take a look at what they’ve done to make sure they are actually doing the work and doing it properly.  Let’s be realistic, they will try to take the easy road if you let them get away with it.

Use music as a chore-time cue.

Make a habit of playing upbeat music during chore time. At the start of our morning chores every day, I play the Toby Mac station on my Pandora radio app. This is a cue that it’s time to start, it gets everyone moving and gives work time a fun, positive feel.

Use non-toxic cleaning supplies. 

It’s important to make sure your children are not exposed to dangerous chemicals in cleaning products.   An added bonus to using natural cleaning supplies is that if you make them yourself they’re very inexpensive. 

Non-Toxic Cleaning Recommendation: E-Cloths

E-Cloths remove over 99% of bacteria on surfaces with only WATER! You don’t need any kind of cleaning spray due to the special fibers. I bought the set pictured above 6 years ago and they’re still in good shape.

Hire children to do extra jobs.

Lastly, we don’t give our children an allowance, but we do hire them to do any extra jobs that come up.  For example, I don’t assign anyone to scrub the grout on our tile floors, but when that needs to be done, I announce the extra job. Then, whoever wants to do additional work to earn some money can take the job. 

I hope that you were able to glean some helpful tips for getting your kids to do chores daily.  Having children consistently help with chores will help ease your workload and it will teach them valuable life skills and work ethic.  If you assign specific chores to each child and make it part of the daily routine, the work will get done! 

What has helped your kids do their chores daily? Comment below to share your tips.