Is My 5 Year Old Ready for Chores?

Is my 5 year old ready for chores? When we think of our kids growing up, we often cringe at the moments when they are going through the stages. Changes like the infant to toddler stage and the dreaded adolescence stage, prove agonizing for parents. In the beginning, many things that may not seem like a big deal, end up being a hard decision to make when the time comes. One of those things being the age when your child should conduct chores. We often want to teach, while not putting our loved ones in harms way. This often make for over thinking. Working with children ranging from 5 to 13, all in one living setting, responsibility had to be evenly distributed. in a way not to discriminate against others, everyone needed to be able to do the same tasks, or it would exuberate favoritism, in which the other children will quickly inform you of.

Because a 13 year old can obviously be responsible for more duties than a 5 year old, it only seems logical that the 13 year old get the bulk of the chore duty. Meaning things like taking trash out, or washing dishes, right? Well, this is partly true, but mostly false.

When dividing up tasks or similar things, food, games, etc. amongst multiple children, equality is the key. The worst thing to do is to not only give one child more or less of something than the other, but to also allow them to witness that you have gave one child more or less of something than the other. Therefore, it is imperative, that things are equally distributed amongst the masses. Below is a foundation for setting up a chore list for the household, that involves every one's participation.

Set up a list of chores. Start out with a simple pen and paper and jot down all of the chores of the house that needs to be taken care of on a daily basis. List them in any order or from easiest to hardest however you like, then transfer list to a dry/erase board that you can purchase at places like amazon.com or Wal-Mart. cut a piece of a paper into enough squares to compensate for the amount of chores and write each chore on the pieces of paper accordingly. Now, gather the family for a "grab-bag" event for chores. If you do not have a standard 'Abraham Lincoln' hat to draw chores from, a simple baseball cap will do. Whatever chores are picked from the hat is the chore claimed by that child for some period of time. A week, a month, etc. You can at that time write the names of the children next to their corresponding chore, with a note at the bottom of the next date for a chore change. At that point, you have the option of pulling from the hat again, or rotating the chore, where each person's name either goes up or down on the list and on to the next chore. I recommend this method because it saves from argument. Once again, things have to be evenly distributed, so rotating the chore list ensures that everyone, including parents-as you should implement yourself as well, will have performed all the chores on the list at some point. This will prevent any disputes about one picking the same chore over and over, or simply not getting fair treatment.

What does this say for the 5 year old? How is my 5 year old expected to clean toilets and sinks? With good management of the environment, structure and a little hurdle-helping is how. Managing your environment means taking control of what you can and structuring the area for the safest and best fit atmosphere. Simply put, if your child is preparing to enter the living room and you know that there is a hot, plugged in iron in there on the floor, then removing it would be a form of your management of that environment.

Kids constantly want to feel important and that they are apart of something. This is explained in the article "Understanding Your Child to Deal With a Crisis Situation". A 5 year old is no different. In fact you will notice that your youngest child is the most eager, for they have something to prove. If the 5 year old gets garbage duty, simply give them a little hurdle help by carrying the bag to the receptacle with them. Of course, supporting most of the weight. If it's bathroom duty, patience will be needed, but again with hurdle helping, gloves and careful handling of cleansing products, you can teach your little one on independent living skills. This will not only save a lot of conflict amongst children, and add as another one-up for the parents, it will also serve as a reference and prevention tools for those times of lack of ambition by some of the older, "know better" kids in the house.

With that being said, I strongly support administering chores to your 5 year old. Again well balanced structure and environment management are key to success. Always follow safety precautions and consult with professionals when in doubt.