Why I Don’t Assign My Kids Chores, and What I Do Instead

by Janny Jackson

I’ve wrestled for years over if or how I would “assign” chores to my kids, and the pressure to have a family chore system in place. I’ve seen many different ways from other moms on social media, I’ve gotten creative with Pinterest ideas, and had many conversations with friends about it. It just never stuck.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am well aware of the many benefits of assigning chores, including teaching responsibility, cleanliness, etc. It’s not that I don’t teach my kids these things, I just don’t teach them specifically through assigned chores.

Why? It’s not them, it’s me. I have always been extra clean and tidy (it’s a control thing), which is something that has obviously relaxed a lot since having kids; that’s just part of life. But on top of that I have realized three things about myself:

I do not enjoy having to do tasks twice once it has already been done

When I did attempt any type of chore chart and teaching my kids how to deep clean an area like a bathroom, I quickly realized that learning how to clean properly is a skill that takes not only a lot of time and patience, but also repetition and continuing to teach the skill until perfected. Is this important in life? Absolutely. Is it something I personally want to teach my kids at a young age? Nope!

As a busy mom of 3, almost 4, I just don’t have the time to spend more time on a task than it already takes. My days are full of homeschooling, meal making, and all the other odds and ends a SAHM mom does throughout the day, the last thing I want to do is spend an hour cleaning a bathroom when it could’ve taken me 30 minutes or less.

I do not enjoy teaching young children grown up tasks, especially when they are not developmentally ready for that task to “stick”

What I am NOT saying is that I will never teach my kids these important life skills. What I am saying is that I will not force it upon my young kids when they are not developmentally ready to learn a skill that won’t “stick”.

I often compare it to potty training. If you attempt to potty train a child before they are ready it will results in not only lots of accidents but also lots of frustration between both parent and child. Been there, done that. Now I wait until my kids are ready, and have had great success in that area.

What do I do instead? I DO leave the door open for my kids to ask to help. One thing that I find incredibly important as a parent is to allow your children the opportunity to help when they ask, and we all know that kids want to help with everything. The last thing I want to do is squash my kids’ motivation and desire to learn by not allowing them to participate in something I am doing.

Does this happen every time they ask? No. But even if they aren’t participating in physically helping me complete a task, just having them watch and talking them through what I am working on is still a learning opportunity, and that is our job as parents, to take advantage of those small opportunities in everything.

I care more about my kids being kids and learning through play than doing chores

Kids are always learning. In every environment, with every new person or thing they encounter, there are always learning opportunities bombarding our kids.

It is so important in a kid’s early life to allow them the freedom to be kids. To make messes. To explore new places and things, to build relationships and learn how to interact with others. Those are lifelong skills that should be acquired and built as toddlers and onward. I would rather lean into teaching those skills to my kids while they are young, so that they can build on them as they grow, than worry about them knowing how to mop the floors.

What I do instead of assigning chores

I know what you’re thinking.

“This is all about you.”

“Your kids are going to be so lazy and messy; you’re setting them up for failure as adults.”

On the contrary. Let me explain how I do things differently in my home.

The environment I have created in my home is one of play, exploration, and relationship building. To me, those are a kid’s most important “jobs”. My home is not filled with stuff. My kids do not get everything they may want, and sometimes they do get bored.

But what have they learned?

They have learned to play together. To be each other’s friends. They’ve learned how to squash their own squabbles. They’ve learned how to entertain themselves. They’ve learned how to put their own wants and desires aside and play what their sibling wants to play instead. They’ve learned NOT to rely on a screen.

As it relates to this subject, and how I parent my kids, my kids have learned to do what I ask them to do.

Just because I don’t assign my kids specific chores does not mean that they do not have responsibilities, nor that I don’t have expectations of them.

Remember when I said I have always been a clean and tidy person? That hasn’t gone away. It just has changed form, with me having come to terms that my house will never always be clean to my standards. But my house is always tidy at the end of the day. How? My kids help me keep it that way.

My kids are responsible for many things, including their own hygiene tasks, fixing their beds, keeping their spaces (bedrooms) clean, and doing anything I ask them to do.

What is most important to me, more than assigning chores? My kid’s attitudes about me asking them to help me with chores or tasks around the house.

They might not be scrubbing tubs and toilets (yet) but if I ask them to pick up the toys they left lying around, or take out the trash, or wash the dishes, or clean some windows, or dust something, or help me xyz, their attitude needs to be one of immediate obedience. I don’t expect my kids to like cleaning, heck after having 3 kids I don’t like cleaning anymore because nothing stays clean, but I do expect them to complete a task without grumbling.

And guess what? I don’t incentivize them to do any of it either!

That’s one thing I never agreed with when it comes to chores, and another one of the reasons why it never stuck with me. I do not agree with paying my kids to complete chores around the house. We all live here. We all occupy this space, and we all are responsible for keeping up with it. Again, I may not assign my kids a hardcore deep cleaning job, but I also am not going to pay my kids to keep their rooms clean or take out the trash.

To me, what it comes down to is attitude. Be willing to help me wherever I need help. And also, a developmental readiness when teaching a new task. As my kids get older, they will learn all of the important life skills they need to know before leaving the nest, but that will happen in time. It is not something I am forcing on my kids at a young age.

An important final note

We as moms feel pressure about many areas in parenting, from many different places and people. From pregnancy onward there is always someone trying to tell us how we should or shouldn’t be doing something. What I want to encourage you to do is to be true to yourself! Know your boundaries. Know what you can and can’t handle. Focus on the priorities in your life and home and what is best for YOUR family.

If you have people in your life that don’t align with your values and priorities, that put pressure on you to do things differently than you would prefer, it may be time to reevaluate those relationships. Your family is your responsibility, it belongs to no one else, therefore no one else should have a say in how you do things in your home.

What are your opinions on this topic? Have you found it easy to teach your young kids chores? Has it been worth the struggle and extra time and patience to teach them young? Or are you like me, just let them be kids and teach them when they’re older?

Let me know below! And as always, thanks for being here!