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Age Appropriate Chores For Kids

It’s time once again for Heather Johnson from Family Volley to share some of her amazing Parenting Tips as part of her “Parenting Tips Series” here on The Idea Room. Here’s Heather in her own words teaching us about teaching our kids to work and gives us a list of some age appropriate chores to get us started.

–Amy

*Image found on Google Images. Original found here.

Society implies that success is having all you want, without having to work to get it.

It is true, play sounds more fun. But the idea that work is bad, and play is good is not what we want to preach in our homes. Work and play are meant to compliment one another, not be opposites. As parents, we have a divine obligation to teach our children to work. Raising moral children means teaching them to work.

Getting our kids to work can be hard and frustrating. It is usually the last thing kids want to do. But we do them a disservice by “protecting” them from work and responsibilities.

When it comes to teaching your kids to work, remember…

We need to have a good attitude. Speaking ill of work, or whining about it, will teach our children that work is miserable and bad. Keep the negative feelings to yourself.
Make work fun. It doesn’t have to be miserable. Turn on some music, make it a game, chat and talk while you’re working.
Work together. You don’t have to do the work for your children, but you can be with them as they are working. And remember, they learn by example, so working together gives you a great opportunity to teach them how things are done. How else will they learn?
Teach children to serve others. Provide your children with opportunities to serve outside your home and see the needs of others. Service teaches children to work. Then, help our children understand that family life is filled with needs. We want our children to see those needs and step up to fulfill them because it is the right thing to do.
Don’t expect perfection. Accept the best job your child can do and thank them for their service. Even if you have to re-do some of the work. Be grateful and happy for the work they did.

I often get questions about what “work” is appropriate for our children. Here is some suggestions of age appropriate responsibilities for our kids. Keep in mind that each of our children are different. Do what is best for your child. This list is not all encompassing. Add or take away according to your child’s abilities.

2-3 Years

Dress themselves

Pick up/put away toys

Unload the silverware in the dishwasher

Collect dirty clothes/separate by color

Straighten pillow and sheets on bed

Wash walls

Wipe down glass tables. Wipe down chairs.

4-5 Years

All Previous responsibilities, plus…

Load/unload plastic dishes and silverware in the dishwasher

Set the table

Clean Windows

Wipe down sinks

Fold kitchen dish towels

Fold Towels

Weed

Clear the table

Make Bed

Match Socks

Water plants

Empty Garbage cans

Straighten Room

6-8 Years

All previous responsibilities, plus…

Clean the bathroom (wipe down sinks, toilets, mirror, tub)

Sweep

Vacuum

Learn to do laundry (help hang and fold)

Rake Leaves

Mix, stir, simple meal prep

Keep room clean

9-11 Years

All previous responsibilities, plus…

Take the garbage out

Wash clothes

Wash Car

Help care for pets

Iron Clothes (closer to 11 yrs.)

Mow Lawn

Straighten drawers and closet

Help siblings with their jobs and homework questions

12-14 Years

All previous responsibilities, plus…

Scrub the bathroom

Mop the floor

Make meals

Clean the fridge/freezer

Clean the garage

15-18 Years

All previous responsibilities, plus…

Drive a car and get their license

Handle a checking account

Have a cell phone (pay for it?)

Have a job

Fill out college applications

Have a question or just want to say hello.

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January 24, 2013 · Filed under: Parenting Help, Parenting Tips with Heather Johnson Tagged with age appropriate chores, chore list, kids and chores, kids and work, parenting tips, teaching kids to work

Family “New Year” Resolutions

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It’s time once again for Heather Johnson from Family Volley as part of her “Parenting Tips” here on The Idea Room. Here’s Heather in her own words.

–Amy

What a wonderful time of year. Hopefully your homes have been filled with family, togetherness, and the spirit of the season.

It is also a time of year for renewal and re-commitment. New Years Resolutions aren’t just for us as individuals, they are for families too!

There are lots of approaches for making family resolutions. One that is always fun, is to choose a theme. This could be a key word (such as service, love, kindness, or organization.)

You can also choose a motto, quote, or a saying that represents a focus your family would like to have for the upcoming year.

Or you can choose a weakness that your family would like to make a strength. Let that be your focus for the year, and create a few resolutions focused around that strength.

When you are ready to establish some resolutions, gather the entire family together. It is much more powerful to make the decisions together and have the input of the entire family. Plus, when everyone is involved in the decision making, they will be much more likely to commit and follow through. They will take ownership because they had a say.

Then, start by focusing on all of the things your family did well during the last year. If you have a white board, or even just a piece of paper, write all the strengths down for everyone to see. This is an important step. Remember, you are focusing on the family as a whole. Don’t start pointing out individual weaknesses of family members.

Then, once you have built your family up, start talking about what you would like to focus on and change. A good place to start, have everyone in the family suggest a weakness they see your family has, and/or something they would like to see different or changed, or do more of.

Take a vote and have everyone weight in and narrow the suggestions down to two or three. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Choosing 20 resolutions for your family is setting yourselves up for failure.

Once you have chosen your 2-3 resolutions, establish the details. It isn’t just about the goals. You also need to establish how you will reach your goals.

The last step during your resolution setting meeting, is to schedule follow up family meetings. Your family should sit down each month and evaluate how the resolutions are going.

If you are not sure what resolutions would be good for your family. Here are three that every family should implement this year, and every year.

1. Commit to eat dinner together at least 5 days a week. I recognize that this may seem like a lofty charge, but eating together has benefits beyond belief. For starters, children who eat dinner together with their families are less likely to get involved in drugs and alcohol. They also get better grades, are more adjusted, and better able to handle stress and disappointment. That alone, is a great reason. On top of that, research shows that around the dinner table is where families used to teach morals and values. But now that families eat together less, where are children learning these skills? They aren’t. They are learning from television. We need to gather our children back around our own tables to reconnect and teach.

If dinner doesn’t work for your family, try breakfast. If 5 times is more than you can do, then do what you can.

2. Plan one family activity each week. It is true, families that play together, stay together. Family activities provide opportunities for families to bond in a non threatening environment. These activities also provide families opportunities to develop adaptation and negation skills. Don’t just talk about it. Put it on the calendar. Schedule it into your life just like your other obligations to ensure that it will happen. Consider it the most important event on your calendar each week.

3. Work together. Family work is vital. It is key to raising moral children. Instead of keeping our children from work, rally together and work together each week. It can be household work, yard work, or a project that you choose specifically for this resolution. Regardless of the task, do it together. You will be amazed at how it strengthens.

Don’t just sit down and plan out your personal resolutions for 2013. Take some time to create resolutions for your family also, and watch 2013 be your families best year EVER!

Does your family set New Year’s Resolutions?

What can you see your family working on this year?

Have a question or just want to say hello.

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December 27, 2012 · Filed under: New Year's Eve, Parenting Help, Parenting Tips with Heather Johnson Tagged with New Year's Eve, New Years Resolutions, parenting tips

Discipline – Enforcing Consequences

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It’s time once again for Heather from Family Volley to share with us some Parenting Tips as part of her “Parenting Tips” here on The Idea Room. I realize that today is a Wednesday and usually Heather’s series runs every other Thursday here on The Idea Room. I had to make a little rearrangement this week so you get her a day early! Here’s Heather in her own words…

–Amy

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Parenting is hard. Especially when we have to discipline. Our kids will make mistakes, and we will have to enforce consequences.

Although there isn’t a cookie cutter consequence for every situation or misstep, there are some important guidelines that will really help us as parents.

The most important thing to remember…Don’t EVER, EVER withhold love as a consequence. When a child gets in trouble they will often rush in for a hug and for affection. Don’t refuse them. Give them the hug, show affection and love and then enforce the consequences.

Other important suggestions…

Make it clear before the misbehavior happens, that there are consequences for bad behavior. The time to talk about it is when no one is doing anything wrong. When kids are young, they often don’t know they have done anything wrong until they get in trouble. Set clear consequences if the expectations are not met.

Do not use physical force as a response to physical misbehavior. Example, if your child hits you, don’t hit them back. This is especially confusing to small children. A child will process the situation as “You just told me not to hit and then you hit me, I don’t understand”. In the long run it will not teach the right lesson.

After you give a warning to your child, if the behavior doesn’t immediately change, clearly state the consequence and then enforce it. There is no need for you to justify, explain, or negotiate. Enforce the consequences and then explain later when things have calmed down.

Don’t give idol threats. If you say “if you yell at me again you will go to your room,” and they yell at you again, You Better send them to their room. I learned this the hard way with our daughter. After an idol threat, she looked at me and said, …” you said that last time, but you didn’t do it.” Yikes. Learned my lesson that day. Now I make sure to follow through.

Don’t give in. Enforce the consequence. Giving in sends the wrong message. Your kids won’t ever take you seriously if you don’t enforce the consequence.

When appropriate, you can allow your kids to have a say in their punishment. Make sure they are reasonable and adequate.

When trying to establish consequences, first consider the offense. A good place to start is asking yourself, “what would right the wrong?” Then consider “what would teach the correct principle the child needs to learn?”

If you like to use time-out, consider the Time-Out Rule: 1 minute in time-out for every year your child is old. (A five year old=5 minutes). Don’t use time-outs for children under 3.

Now that we have some general suggestions, here are three specific things that can be done when you need a consequence.

1. Loss of Privilege.

Take a minute or two and think about each of your children. What do they value? What means the most to them?

For our son, it is television time.

For our daughter it is playing with friends and running errands with me.

It is these privileges that are the first to go when they misbehave.

Just be sure that the privilege you take is something you can control, like toys, cell phone, computer, tv, playing with friends, etc.

The key is to be CONSISTENT!

You can consider using a Privilege Chart.

Take pictures of the things your child can’t live without. Your child looses one privilege starting from least favorite to most favorite when they misbehave or talk back. Realize that their chart will change as they get older.

2. Natural Consequences, let them take their course.

Most actions have natural consequences that occur. Let these natural consequences teach and don’t feel like you have to “save” your child from the consequence. It is the perfect time to help your child understand that our actions have consequences. When we make good decisions, our consequences are positive. When we make poor decisions, our consequences are negative.

We experienced this with our son not too long ago. Despite plenty of ability, time to finish, and help, our son wouldn’t focus to finish his homework. He knew that if he didn’t finish by bedtime, that he would have to go to school with it unfinished (he can’t stand not having his homework done.) Our son didn’t believe us. He was certain we would let him stay up as long as it took. We stood strong and he ended up going to school with unfinished work. He had to suffer the natural consequence of his actions. Boy did it teach him a lesson. The natural consequence did far more to teach him then a consequence we would have set.

2. Whining Chair, Time away, time out, being sent to another room…call it what you want.

The lesson to teach when we have to remove our children from the situation is…“if you are going to misbehave, then you can’t be apart until you change your actions.” A child who is not listening, who is yelling, talking back, or treating siblings unkind, needs to be removed from the situation.

Just remember to stay strong, you don’t have to explain yourself.

Remember, it comes down to what works with each child. Trail and error will help as you learn to understand each child. As parents, we need to stay calm and collected. We need to be confident and in charge. Above all, we need to be consistent.

It won’t be perfect every time. A bad day doesn’t mean that all is lost. We will have plenty of opportunities to enforce consequences, we just need to stick with it.

Remember above all…ALWAYS follow the reprimand with an increase in LOVE, ALWAYS.

How do you enforce consequences in your home?

What is your leverage? What can’t your child live without?