How We Do Chores
From feeding the dog to helping with outside tasks, I’m sharing what chores my kids do, how we approach chores and allowance in our house and what our expectations are. I know chores and look a lot different from family to family, but this it working for us!
Chores and allowance and learning how to raise your children to be hard workers and manage their money well is tough! There's one thing I've learned: a child’s capacity and and ability to understand hard work and do hard work at a young age is astounding (and *some* kids don’t want you to know that…HA!)
Of course, chores need to be age appropriate, but it’s never too young to start teaching your kids how to work hard and how to handle money. Right now our kids are 6 and 9. That said, we differentiate with our kids between household responsibilities and chores. There are certain things they have to do just because they're a part of this family and that's what it looks like to be a family is we help each other and we work hard to keep our home tidy.
But also there are things that they do that are a little bit more time-consuming that they can earn money for. We teach them to do three things with their money. We teach them to save their money, we teach them to give 10% of all of their money to church or other worthy causes, and we teach them to spend their money…concepts that apply to adulthood too. (These books are great to reinforce those ideas.)
We don't do allowance. We wanna teach our kids that in the real world, you have to work to get money and it doesn't just come to you. It's not just given to you. You have to get up and you have to go out and earn it. And so that's what we want teach our kids from a young age is they have the ability and the personal responsibility to get going and do some hard work and earn some money. And that is up to them.
Sometimes we encourage or ask our kids to help. If they say no, they know they won’t have the ability to earn money that day. Other times, we force it and say they need to help with these three chores today. You have to, you can choose when, but you have to do them today. And if they don’t, there is a consequence, because sometimes we just need the help!
This all depends on the week and the day and kind of what our needs are as a household. We do try to take them shopping pretty regularly to just show them, hey, your chores equal like money, which equals a reward that you get to buy.
And that just keeps them willing to do their chores and it teaches them the principle of like, “Hey, you get to have fun with money.” That's part of a healthy relationship with money. You have to do all three things, save, spend, and give and spending's part of that. So we want them to have fun with it and like kind of get that like hit of joy and sense of accomplishment, pride and dignity, knowing their hard work just got this toy or whatever they bought.
And you know, if we get to the store, one thing that I really try to do is teach them, if you're $2 short, we're going to have to come back next week. Like this is part of learning how to manage your money and save. We teach them about taxes at the store. They have to like save an extra $2 for every toy that they wanna buy. We try to teach them all that stuff so that they understand how it all works. And sometimes, I'll spot them a couple dollars if they've worked really hard or we miscalculated something.
I don’t really have a fancy chore chart (though I’ve used these in the past for checkmarks!), our kids just know that every week there are certain things they do to help our household run smoothly. They split these tasks between themselves and sometimes work together or separately or we all do it as a family.
Feed the dog/fill her water
Vacuum/mop
Water plants
Help make beds
Fold laundry & put away their laundry
Empty dishwasher
Help clear the table after meals
Clean their rooms/playroom
Help put away groceries
Help empty the trash cans
All of these tasks are things that they are expected to do to help our family, help our household run smoothly. It helps build work ethic. They can help with “bigger” projects, and that is where they earn money from us. For example: if we need to do weeding, mow the grass, any other outdoor projects, helping Dad with one of his projects or help me with food prep, cleaning, other projects I am working on, etc.
Some days there is resistance to do their basic chores (or even the extra “above and beyond” ones to earn money). Bur, it has really helped them know what it looks like to be in a family. We all have to work, we all have to carry our own weight and pull our own weight to keep this household going and to have time for the fun stuff!
Just the other day, my oldest wanted to mow the lawn. And my younger son helped me make the guest bedroom for someone staying over, prep breakfast muffins for the morning and make a batch of homemade laundry detergent. It was the coolest thing, and they were so full of pride in being able to help us out. At the end of the night, they each got money and we talked about why they earned it and how that helped our family. The smiles and satisfaction on their faces was really something. Like a spark just went off and they connected everything. I think that's my favorite part: they're so proud of themselves when they work hard and earn something for it.
And then the last thing is just teaching them what it looks like to divide up their money to save, spend and give. With regards to giving, they get the principle that this money is God’s money. And a really important part of managing our money and our hard work is making sure that God is honored with it in everything we do. So they set aside “give” money in an envelope for church or other worthy causes. They also have envelopes in their wood banks at home that are marked “save” that we deposit into their savings accounts. (They are online accounts, so we make sure they physically see the cash going into an envelope before we deposit it.) Their spend money is typically kept in their wallet for baseball concession treats, toys, etc.
In the end, I just want to raise kids who are healthy with work and play and healthy with their finances. And it starts young and it starts small, but it's been so rewarding to see all of that play out. We really just want our kids to have a healthy relationship with money and to develop a really great work ethic. And I think it's starting to work with how we do our chores.
“Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one, it makes you that much stronger. If you do little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.”
This post is in partnership with Responsival.