If the combination of your career, your tasks around the house and your parental duties is overwhelming, it may be time to hire an assistant. Not a professional, but more along the lines of…your child. As in, chores for kids!
According to a recent survey, one in three parents admits to assigning the chores that they hate doing themselves the most to their kids. Because, why not? Isn’t that why chores for kids were invented? The survey conducted by Cinch Home Services asked 1020 people in the United States to share some insight about the chores in their homes and nearly one-third of the responders reported they pass the undesirable ones along to their kids. Ah, the true splendor of delegating unwanted tasks to your underlings.
The bad news with enlisting your child to help you around the house is that you need to commit some time to training them at first because you can’t expect them to master their tasks right away. That means some incidents (think along the lines of things dropped and spilled, and nothing done to perfection the first few times around) may occur during their “training”.
5 Hidden Benefits of Assigning Chores to Kids
The good news? “Chores can be very beneficial for kids anyway, though,” the survey reveals. Adding, “For example, they can develop life skills due to their heightened sense of responsibility as well as a boost to their self-esteem by completing household tasks” And the earlier you start teaching your kids to help you, the better.
To nobody’s great surprise, the number one hated chore, according to those who participated in the survey, was cleaning toilets. Shocking, we know. Cleaning toilets was followed by removing hair from drains, cleaning bathrooms, and unclogging kitchen sinks The survey also indicated that families with one or two kids stick with a schedule. But, for families who have three or more kids, chore charts and schedules are less often used.
According to the Center For Parenting Education, children who regularly do chores are also better able to deal with frustration; delay gratification; have higher self-esteem and are more responsible compared to children who don’t help out with chores. So it’s a win-win for all!
Look most kids are fully functional and quite adept at using their limbs, and if you are going to shuttle them around to activities, cook them dinner, buy their clothes and provide them shelter, the least they could do is clean your house.
Do you assign chores for kids in your house?
