Age-Appropriate Chores That Teach Your Kids Valuable Life Skills

As a parent, it’s our job to make sure that our kids are equipped with all of the skills they’ll need to be adults someday. And although there are many skills to cover… Today we’ll be talking about how to use age-appropriate chores to teach your kids how to take care of a home.

Plus, I’ll be throwing in some tips on motivating your children to actually do these chores. As well as some thoughts on how to make the experience especially meaningful for your kiddos! So let’s jump right in…

Benefits Of Age-Appropriate Chores For Kids

There are many benefits to assigning chores to your kids, ranging from their mental health to their future. But here are a few of the main ones…

• It teaches them responsibility, as well as how to be productive
• It teaches them valuable life skills that they’ll use as adults
• It makes them feel important and helpful to do chores, which can improve their mental health and increase confidence
• And, if implemented in the right way, it can help your child learn to stick with a schedule

As you can see, there’s really no downside to kids doing chores. As long as they’re age-appropriate of course! So, having said that, let’s get into which chores you should assign to your kids based on their age.

Age-Appropriate Chores For Every Age Group

Toddlers (2-3)

Starting with the youngest age group, here are some chores that many toddlers will be able to handle with no problem! (And yes, you can start this early in life! In fact, a lot of toddlers get immense enjoyment out of completing their “chores”.)

• Making the bed
• Wiping up spills
• Putting laundry, toys, and books away

Now, it should go without saying that most toddlers will need help with their chores. And in many cases, having them complete these “chores” will be more work for you. But in the long run, you’re teaching them valuable skills and building a habit that will serve them for a lifetime. So it’s worth it!

For instance, most toddlers will not be able to make the bed by themselves. But they could have a lot of fun “helping” you do it! Likewise, you’ll probably need to at least supervise the rest of the chores as well.

Bonus Chore (Dusting) – Some toddlers might also be able to “dust”, as long as you don’t use any kind of spray that could be toxic if ingested or breathed in. (Because hey, they’re toddlers after all!)

You simply need to place a baggy sock on their hand and let them start “dusting” any furniture that they can reach. At the very least, this will keep them occupied while you do the real dusting. And it makes them feel involved.

Young Kids (4-5)

Moving onto the next age group, here are some chores that you could assign to children who are around four to five years old.

• Making the bed
• Keeping their room tidy
• Dusting
• Setting and clearing the table
• Putting away groceries
• Doing some dishes
• Watering plants
• Sorting laundry

Especially if you’ve already been having your kids complete chores since they were toddlers, they should have some of the basics down by the time they’re four or five. So they’ll probably be able to do most of the chores I listed earlier all by themselves at this point.

Which means that you can move onto introducing them to more types of chores. Such as gardening through watering the plants, laundry by teaching them how to sort clothes, organizing by getting them used to where the groceries go, dishes by letting them wash off small and easy items, etc.

Young Kids (6-7)

Now for the six to seven year old children, you can keep any chores from the above list that you want. But you can now add chores like the following…

• Folding and putting away their laundry
• Sweeping and mopping
• Loading and unloading the dishwasher

Something that I want to emphasize here though, is that you want to be sure not to overload your kids with chores. Especially as we progress through these age-appropriate chores, and your children are able to do more and more.

Because when your kids are young, they shouldn’t be doing much more than about a half an hour worth of chores per day. So…

• This might mean that you start handing off the simpler chores to younger children, while the older children complete the more advanced ones.

• Or that you schedule different chores for different days with the help of a chore chart.

• Or that you simply pick and choose which chores you want your kids to help with. Leaving out ones that you don’t care as much about.

Just make sure that you aren’t putting too much stress on your kiddos when it comes to household responsibilities.

Young Kids (8-9)

At this age, your kids will obviously be able to do all of the above. But you could start introducing new chores like…

• Using the washer and dryer for their clothes
• Taking out the trash
• Cleaning parts of the bathroom
• Vacuuming

As you can see, by this point in your child’s life (if you’ve been teaching them the basics of chores from the time they were small) they’ll finally be reaching the point where they know how to do most things by themselves.

The only two things to keep in mind here are ensuring that you aren’t overloading your kid with responsibility, and making sure that they have a way to keep track of what they’ve been assigned.

Because when your kids were younger and you were supervising their chores, it was probably easy to keep track of everything. But you’ll likely notice that once your kids reach the age where they can complete chores by themselves, it’s harder to keep tabs on who is doing what.

So you’ll need a chore chart, wheel, schedule, etc… in order to let everyone in the family know what their responsibilities are.

Older Kids (10-12)

You may have noticed that we’re covering a bit more of a jump in age here, and that’s because by now kids are usually able to handle most chores. Plus, children around this age aren’t developing as quickly as they did when they were younger. So things in the household don’t typically change as fast either.

Having said that though, here are some chores that ten to twelve year old kids should now be able to take on…

• Cleaning the kitchen
• Cleaning the bathroom
• Washing and changing their own sheets

By this point, kids are usually able to clean entire rooms and clean up after all their own messes. So a reasonable amount of responsibility could be to take care of their own bedroom, bathroom, and laundry.

And if you have some sort of reward system set up for completing the chores (which we’ll be talking about in a moment), you could even offer bonuses based off if they do anything extra. So in other words, you could have a list of mandatory chores AND optional ones. That way, you aren’t overwhelming your kids but they can choose to do more if they feel like it.

Teens (13-18)

It’s finally time for our last age group, the teens! This is the time in your child’s life where they are transitioning into young adults. So it’s especially important to give them responsibility and foster their independence.

Obviously any of the chores we’ve already mentioned could be easily completed by teens, but by this age they’ll probably also be able to handle…

• Mowing the lawn
• Washing the car
• Washing the windows
• Cleaning appliances like the fridge

Now, it’s important to note that even when your teen is living at home, the older they get… the more responsibilities they’ll be likely to have outside of the household. Their social lives are probably ramping up, they’ll be thinking about college, and they may even have a part time job.

So depending on their activity level, you may need to adjust their list of chores. And of course, by this point, they’ll definitely need to start saving their own money. So the addition of allowance is especially important here. Which brings me into the next section…

How should you reward your child for completing their age-appropriate chores?

It’s important to positively reinforce your child working on their chores. And the good news is, there’s plenty of ways to do this!

Allowance

Obviously, the most popular way to reward your child for completing their tasks is by giving them an allowance. And this comes with a variety of benefits, such as…

• If you allow your children to “earn” money it opens up a lot of unique opportunities. Because, not only will they now be able to save up for things they want to buy, but you can also teach them age-appropriate lessons about finances!
• It will also keep them motivated to complete their chores and do a good job.
• Plus, it will teach them the value of hard work.

As far as how much allowance you actually want to give your kids, that will depend on a few things. Which chores they’re doing, how many they’re completing, and perhaps even the quality of the job could cause the number to vary. As well as simple factors like age!

For more information on allowances and how to choose the amount you give your children, you can check out this article by Investopedia!

Stickers That Lead To A Bigger Reward

One of my personal favorite ways to reward my kids for finishing their age-appropriate chores when they were young was to have an overarching goal they could work towards. Like a trip to the zoo, a movie marathon, etc…

For every chore they completed, I would give them stickers (or sometimes marbles, back when I had my marble jar). And when they reached a certain amount of stickers (or sometimes a full jar of marbles), they would unlock the larger reward.

If it was an especially big goal, like a family trip of some kind, then I would sometimes add smaller goals along the way to keep them motivated. And it worked like a charm, my kids loved the idea of working towards something together!

This method can be used alongside allowance, or instead of allowance if that’s what you prefer. And it works especially well with younger children.

Praise

No matter which of the above methods you choose to reward your child, the one thing you should always do is praise them when they complete a household task! This builds their confidence, and ultimately the bond between you.

Even if your child doesn’t do a “perfect” job, you still need to be sure that you’re thanking them for their effort and making them feel valued. This, above all the other strategies, will help your child grow as a person.

Final Thoughts

I hope you’ve found this list helpful! But remember, it’s really just meant to serve as a guide and a source of inspiration for you when you’re deciding what chores to assign your kids. Because at the end of the day, “age-appropriate chores” that work for some kids might not work for others. It’s always possible that your child is more or less advanced in certain areas and that’s ok.

You just need to keep your child’s individual needs and strengths in mind! And remember that I have a lot of other content revolving around being a mom, such as this article about tackling the minimalist lifestyle when you have kids. So be sure to check out my other articles!