Why kids need to do house chores

According to a research, parents are now reluctant to ask children to do household tasks. And when they do, it is only limited to trivial responsibilities, such as clearing the table after dinner or tidying up after themselves and nothing more. Little or no house chores are given to kids of these days who in […]

According to a research, parents are now reluctant to ask children to do household tasks. And when they do, it is only limited to trivial responsibilities, such as clearing the table after dinner or tidying up after themselves and nothing more.

Little or no house chores are given to kids of these days who in turn take advantage of the situation that there is always a house help to help out. Equally they see it as absurd when they are eventually asked to help out in the day to day activities of the home.

“In earlier generations, children and adolescents were given meaningful opportunities to be responsible by contributing not only to their households but also to their larger communities,” stated Markella Rutherford, assistant professor of sociology at Wellesley College in Massachusetts in one of his books.

Parents forget that by exempting children from household chores they are doing them more harm than good. Chores help children develop empathy and a desire to contribute to the well-being of others around them.

Hajiya Fatima Saleh, an educationist, says children needed a high degree of physical activity. “Doing chores and running errands could be part of that. Perhaps they could extend that beyond the family and help neighbors with little assistance they need done in the home. But if you don’t inculcate this habit in them they then believe that everything has to be done for them no matter the age of the person doing it for them.”

Some parents believe house hold chores should be lively so that the kids will enjoy doing it and the tedious duties left for the adults to do. “Parents should attempt to keep chores lively, and often even simple things like playing music, telling stories or singing songs can make all the difference between mundane tasks and family fun time,” says Ayeesha Abubabakar, a mother of five kids.

She also emphasized that chores could also be used by busy working parents as an opportunity to spend more quality time with their children individually especially during weekends.

Giving kids household chores is not punishments as many see it these days. It teaches the kids how to be trustworthy and equally responsible and dependent. The more we give kid chores to do as they grow older they become more responsible as whatever chores they are assigned to do is always useful to their upbringing.

Some of the advantages of assigning chores to kids are:

•    It helps set a pattern of the child helping around the house. Gradually this becomes part of their lives forever.

•    It helps emphasize the value of keeping the environment clean and organized.

•    They learn to taka up responsibilities around the house

•    They also learn that to achieve something they need to work hard

•    They also learn to respect people especially if there are house helps in the house.

•    They learn to do things on their own without being told or persuasion.

•    They also learn to be grateful in life.

As parents we should also be careful not to overburden the child with chores that are not fit for their ages. Also when giving out chores we shouldn’t give out the instruction as a command, if not the child would feel intimidated. We should also take note that it shouldn’t be a chore given on the spur of the moment of anger. If you give out a chore to a child out of annoyance then the message you are passing will be different.

Chores should be a routine. If chores are just made as routines, the kids will be clear on what they are expected to do. They then begin to see it a responsibility expected of them in contributing to the upkeep of the family rather than work. And if extra chores are to be added it should be as they grow older and if not it should be as a form of punishment which should be made clear to them.

Be careful not give money tokens for chores to be done in the house. There will come a point and time where children grow into teens and young adults and need to be responsible for themselves. If you give token as bribe for chores to be done then you are impacting something totally different in them (corruption). Thereby as they grow older they believe that a bribe has to be given before they do what is expected of them because they haven’t effectively learned the importance of responsibility.