Chore Training for School-Aged Children

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Today, I am continuing my series by detailing the methods I use for chore-training my school-aged children. (If you are interested in other age groups, you may wish to read the earlier posts in this series, Chore Training for Toddlers and Chore Training for Preschoolers). 

In this age group, I use chore training to focus on timeliness, responsibility, and attitude.

Chore Training for Preschoolers

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I started this series by outlining why and how I start chore training for toddlers. Today, I am looking at continuing chore training for preschoolers: children age 3-5. 

While chore training for toddlers is about introducing the tasks in a positive way, chore training for the preschoolers is about building competency, independence, and self-discipline. 

Chore Training for Toddlers

Jacob Willemsz Delff: Portrait of a Boy, Aged 2

Training my children to help with housework is something I value highly. Why?

• I believe that in a family, everyone should help to the best of their ability with the tasks required to keep a clean and tidy home.
• I believe that those who make messes should learn to clean them up.
• I believe that part of a parent’s job is to train children with a long-term goal of independent living, which includes basic housekeeping skills.
• I believe that a healthy attitude to work starts in the home.
• Finally, as much as I love him, my husband’s strengths do not include a love of order, and I want to pass on my own love of order to our children.

So I start when my children are mobile enough to help, and mature enough to understand and follow an instruction - somewhere between 18 months and 2 years.   I have found that at this age, my children are very keen to help, and are bored with the usual ‘baby’ toys and occupations - they are ready to start learning ‘real’ work.   In addition, at this age, they are usually down to 1 nap a day, and have oodles of time to spare.   Chore training is one way of keeping them out of mischief!

Why I Bother Learning Old-Fashioned Skills: Sewing

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One of the skills I learned as a young girl from my mother was to sew. She taught me the basic stitches of plain sewing and embroidery, and when I reached secondary school, I enrolled in lessons in machine sewing. I learned to measure and cut to a pattern, pin, sew, and finish the garments. 

I learned to sew mainly because I enjoyed it, and embroidery in particular was my favourite hobby for a number of years.

Grocery Shopping with Children

I remember feeling very anxious about going grocery shopping when my first child was a baby. What if he cried? What if we took too long and missed his nap time? How would I manage getting him in and out of the trolley and the car, along with all the bags?

Now, when I look back, those days were laughably simple. Now, I know that I am capable of completing a trip to the grocery store with 3 mobile, talkative, and active children. Here are some tips I’ve learned through the years:

Tired of Cooking?

I don’t know about you, but I regularly get tired, bored, and unmotivated to cook meals. For some reason, I don’t have this issue with housework - perhaps because I have structured it so that I have different chores each day? - but the never-ending duty of putting food on the table can definitely grate on me.

So here are the good, bad and ugly strategies I have tried when I start feeling this way: