How to Get Your Children to Do Chores

If you've ever found it hard to encourage your kids to do the dishes, here's some advice from someone who used to hate it, but now realizes the necessity of maintaining a routine.

1. Put their favorite cup, mug, or bowl with the dirty dishes.

For me this one was the easiest way to get me to do the dishes. My mother hates the dishwasher running while she's trying to sleep, and sometimes just doesn't feel like doing dishes after eating, so sometimes she'll just load the dishwasher and not turn it on. When she puts my favorite giant blue mug in there with the dirty dishes, I have no other option but to fill the dishwasher myself and turn it on.

2. Reward them immediately after doing the chore.

Sometimes the routine and the necessity of doing a chore can really wear on a person. I mean come on, do you like doing the dishes? So a way you can definitely motivate someone to do the dishes, even kids, is to immediately offer a reward when they finish. This doesn't have to be a routine forever, but initially getting that immediate motivation can really enforce positivity around a chore and therefore boost the morale to get it done. After a while, the kids will definitely want to do the dishes, because the remnants of the positivity surrounding the completion of the chore from the reward still exist. They now feel a sense of accomplishment when getting it done.

3. Praise

I cannot emphasize this enough! Praise your children! The more you act as if this chore should be done anyway, and don't offer any appreciation, the more taxing and annoying the actual chore becomes. Plenty of problems in the world can be overcome by just adding a little appreciation in our daily lives, so why not start small. Start in your house! Plenty of psychological studies have shown that praising someone for a great job not only makes them feel better, but making another person feel good can often boost your own sense of well being and happiness. So any chance you get, offer praise for a job well done, and reinforce that positivity surrounding daily life!

4. Let them manage that part and have control over that chore.

Letting your child control how things are organized around a particular chore gives them a feeling of control around their lives. Say that they get to organize the kitchen if they do the dishes, and don't go behind them to correct it once you feel they understand the need for it. They feel like they can manage themselves, and this positive step in self management can also leak into other parts of their lives, and become very beneficial in creating their own routine.

5. Never go behind them and re-do something.

As a child there was nothing that annoyed me more than my parents going around after me "correcting" what I had done the wrong way. This basically told me that what I had done wasn't appreciated and wasn't good enough, so there was no point in doing it in the first place. It was so frustrating to have this happen when clearly offering some constructive criticism while I was attempting the chore would have worked better than completely defeating my efforts by going behind me to fix things. It defeats any positive emotions surrounding the completion of an event, and takes away the self management motivation by making the person feel like they haven't, and can't do anything good enough.

6. comment on how well they did and how its helping you out.

Establishing praise is always important and essential to maintaining a routine with a child, and helping them feel good about accomplishing a chore. However, even more effective is actually letting them know you are being helped out by their efforts. Sitting them down and really saying, "you know when you did the dishes I had time to do other things that I needed to get done, and that really helped me out a lot". It creates a bond between parents and children by letting them know they can make your life easier, and that their efforts are worthy of acknowledgement. Giving them this small sense of accomplishment can do wonders for their self esteem and time management skills.

So I hope my tips were helpful, and feel free to add your own! These are the things I have noticed that help me motivate myself, and have helped me motivate others in an effort to maintain a healthy running household.