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In his Exchange article, "Work, Chores, and Play: Setting a Healthy Balance," David Elkind addresses the developmental issues involved in having children perform household chores. In discussing the factor of a child's age, Elkind observes...

"....Preschool children love to participate in activities like setting the table, fetching things (like Daddy’s paper), feeding the dog. Engaging in these activities gives the young child a sense of being grown up and being a useful member of the family. That is why it is so important to give young children the opportunity to participate, at their level of ability, in family chores. With school-age children, particularly after the age of eight, it is a somewhat different story. At this age children’s friends become as important as the family, and children often want to spend their free time with friends rather than help around the house. The need for peer acceptance becomes as, or more, powerful than the need for parental acceptance.

"With this age group it is often useful to sit down and jointly set up a set of guidelines for who is to do what, and when. The underlying rule is that, in a family, everyone has to be responsible for at least a few of the routine household chores. It often helps if parents arrange to do at least some of the chores, like changing sheets and folding the laundry, together. Children are more likely to help in these tasks if one parent, or both, works with them. When we do jobs in this joint way, it is not like we are the boss and they are the workers. Rather we are co-workers, in it together. Doing chores together also provides an important opportunity to talk. In setting up the rules as to who does what, it is important to write them down and post them prominently, so no one can use the excuse, 'I forgot.' In addition it is also useful to jointly set up the penalties for chores that are neglected or left undone. Children are more willing to accept penalties if they have participated in setting them up."

Contributed by Exchange, The Early Childhood Leaders' Magazine Since 1978 

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