How To Get Your Child To Do Chores

Need help getting your child to do their chores? As a mom AND a teacher, I understand the importance of giving children responsibilities and tasks to teach them to be responsible. In my classroom, my students play such an active role in helping the classroom run smoothly. I use these strategies at home as well with my personal child and they work like a CHARM!

My daughter can turn our house upside down in just one day. I’m talking toys everywhere, clothes everywhere (from playing dress-up), kitchen stuff everywhere! But she has learned how to control this habit because she learned how much work goes into the clean-up. Yep, it’s an actual skill we must teach kids. Kids aren’t born knowing how to clean up or why we should clean up.

Kids definitely don’t understand how much work goes into cleaning up…until THEY have to be the ones to do the cleaning.

But getting them to help is a different story, huh? It’s no easy task which is why you may be guilty of cleaning up after your kids from time to time. I’m not even going to lie, I’ve been there too…and still have those days sometimes.

There are a few different strategies that I swear by because they work like a charm. Here is how I get my child to do their chores, NO HASSLE!!

My favorite strategy is the TIMED CONTEST! Kids LOVE contests, especially when it’s against an adult! The rules are simple. We split the rooms or tasks up and whoever is done FIRST (or before the timer rings) wins a treat!! I usually treat my daughter to a croissant at Starbucks because I know she’ll work for it.

To keep it fair, I purposefully give my daughter the areas of the house where she’s made the biggest mess, for example, her room and the living room. I take the other tasks such as cleaning the kitchen. We often make it a family affair and my husband will fold the laundry and put all the clothes away.

This makes the competition even more FUN!

I have Alexa so I have her set a timer. (by the way, if you don’t have an Alexa, you’re missing out!! I have this inexpensive one and it’s a game-changer). But don’t forget to set it for a reasonable amount of time because you would be surprised how fast time flies when you’re doing this. Oh boy, get ready…everyone gets hyped up and your adrenaline is pumping so you start seeing other out-of-place things that you want to get done before the timer runs out (which is awesome)! I usually set it for at least 30 minutes.

My second go-to strategy isn’t a fast one. You’re going to want to have several hours to do this one so I mostly do this on Saturdays where we’re doing a deep clean or spring cleaning.

Make a checklist or chore chart together. Tackle each task one at a time…together.

My daughter is especially motivated because it means we spend more time together. She views this as quality time and it’s when I hear her say the sweetest things about me.

The kids get so excited when they get to be in charge of the checklist. Watching them check off tasks and feel accomplished is priceless!

I have the magnetic chart and post it on my refrigerator so my daughter could easily check stuff off as we go! She gets so determined to complete her to-do list that she JUST. CAN’T. STOP….(but I’m not complaining)! Here are some similar to mine (I have the unicorn one).

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