Household chores are a necessary part of everyday life and ensure our homes are clean and organised. There may come a time when you start thinking about asking your kids to help out with these tasks. While all families have their own way of doing things, there are some important benefits of chores for young people and encouraging them to take part in the running of the house. Read on to learn more about the importance of chores for kids.
Why are household chores important?
While encouraging your children to do household chores might help to take some of the pressure off you, your kids may benefit too. Over the years, plenty of research has made a strong case for children doing chores. A study by the University of Minnesota found that the best predictor of a person's success as a young adult directly relates to whether they began helping out with household chores at a young age.
Plus, if you reward your kids for doing chores through the GoHenry app, you will also help to kickstart their financial education and teach them crucial money management skills.
Some of the main reasons why household chores can benefit kids include:
- Chores encourage kids to get used to routines
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Chores help build a sense of purpose
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Chores help kids develop a strong work ethic
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Chores teach life skills
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Improve planning and time management skills
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Chores help kids develop their self-reliance
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Chores prepare kids for their first job
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It makes kids feel included and valued
Read our full list below to find out why household chores are important for kids:
1. They help kids realise how much parents do
Housework can show young people what their parents do for them and build respect for what you do around the house. It shows kids that housework doesn't do itself - there are no housework fairies that clean their clothes, tidy their bedrooms and put away their toys. Children may also become more aware of the mess they make and more considerate of the work that goes into running a home.
2. Kids can further develop empathy
Learning how to do chores can encourage a child to be more empathetic and understand the importance of contributing to family life. It helps keep them grounded while encouraging them to develop care and consideration.
3. Chores encourage kids to get used to routines
By doing chores regularly, children will soon learn how a routine can help them accomplish tasks. It shows them that they must do certain things at certain times to move on to the next task.
4. Chores help build a sense of purpose
Giving children responsibilities can keep them motivated and provide a feeling of accomplishment. Helping around the home by doing chores can help to give a child a real sense of pride, and praising them for their achievement will likely encourage them to want to do more.
Related: How to motivate your kids to do chores
5. They build motor skills
Folding laundry, pegging clothes out on the washing line, washing dishes and then wringing out the sponge afterwards are all great ways kids can strengthen those small muscles in the hands and improve their fine motor skills.
6. Chores help kids develop a strong work ethic
Doing chores will likely be your kids' first-ever "job", it can help them learn about the importance of completing a task on time and to the best of their ability. When chores are linked with a reward, such as pocket money, being paid for their chores will help them to understand the link between work and earning.
7. They help improve planning and time management skills
Being able to think ahead about what tasks need to be done is a skill that we need in our daily lives. Planning and time management are valuable life skills that kids can learn by helping with household chores. As your child starts to be given responsibilities, encourage them to work out when and how they should do these tasks to make the best use of their time.
Related: Easy ways to teach your child organisational skills
8. Chores teach life skills
Your children probably won't be living at home forever and will need to learn how to run a home of their own. Cooking, laundry, housework and budgeting are just a few important life skills your child will need to grasp when they move out. There's no better time to start teaching your children these skills than when they are young. It will help make these tasks a natural part of everyday life and not a big deal, so they'll have the skills and confidence to do things for themselves when they leave home.
Related: How do chores teach life skills?
9. They help kids develop a sense of responsibility
Giving your child regular household chores can , especially tasks that relate directly to them, such as doing their laundry or tidying their room. Tasks like these can also help kids become more self-reliant and take pride in their belongings.
Related: How to teach responsibility to a child?
10. Chores help kids develop their self-reliance
Chores can help children build confidence by learning to do things for themselves rather than having their parents do it for them all the time. While chores can help kids to become more self-reliant, it's also a way for them to learn how to solve problems by themselves.
11. They build teamwork skills
Being part of a family means that your kids are automatically part of a team, and learning how to work as a team can be hugely important to kids as they get older. Teamwork is all about having trust in others, listening to others, helping others who may be struggling (such as younger siblings) and even delegating to others. Learning these valuable skills while at home, where they are in a safe place to make mistakes, can help children develop strong teamwork skills they can use at school and work.
12. Chores prepare kids for their first job
Doing chores teaches kids an array of valuable personal skills, from empathy and responsibility to teamwork and time management skills, all of which are important precursors to employment.
13. They build family bonds
Rather than seeing chores as something negative that takes up valuable time, chores can be the source of some rather special moments within the family. You can even make chores fun. Just as young children keen to help will get a self-esteem boost from helping, teenagers may take the opportunity to open up while working on a task with you.
14. They make your life easier
Teaching your kids how to do chores may take a fair bit of time and energy, and perhaps even a little patience. Rest assured, it will be worth it when your child can do things themselves and you can finally take five minutes to sit back, relax and drink a whole cup of hot tea. Bliss.
15. It makes kids feel included and valued
Taking part in household chores can help children feel important and valued. This is because they are given a responsibility, just like the responsibilities that adults and older kids have. With this, they have the opportunity to prove themselves in the home.
Simply being trusted to carry out a household chore to a good standard is a self-esteem booster in children. It shows that you appreciate their effort, their ability, and their participation at home.
16. Chores help improve problem-solving skills
Undertaking a household chore, especially for the first time, is a great problem-solving exercise for a child. As kids take on new tasks, they must work with initiative and creativity to figure out how to complete their chores well.
Completing chores requires planning, remembering instructions, and making links in their actions. For example, the skills needed to brush the floor are similar to those needed to mop. With practice, children are able to figure out how to complete tasks that once seemed complicated. This encourages them to take on bigger, more challenging tasks in other areas.
17. They help kids understand more about money and earning
Beth Zemble, VP of Education at GoHenry, explains how chores and household tasks can help build children's understanding of money:
“Providing kids with payment for chores can help them understand the concept of earned income as opposed to money received as a gift, for a birthday or perhaps from the tooth fairy.”
Beth says, “Earning money helps kids to understand both the value of earning and the value of money by helping them to appreciate the connection between their work and the financial gain.”
When children complete a task and then receive pocket money, they can clearly see that their actions can have rewards. This creates a link between working and earning, something that will be extremely important for them later in life.
Make it easy to pay for your kids for chores with GoHenry
If you are looking for ways to motivate and reward your kids for doing chores, a pocket money app like GoHenry makes it easy. Through the GoHenry app, you can assign tasks to your kids to help them keep track of what they need to do, while children can quickly get to grips with the routine of doing chores.
You can also use the parent GoHenry app to track when tasks are completed and reward your kids for a job well done with pocket money on their GoHenry prepaid debit card.
Your child will have access to Money Missions, including quizzes and interactive games through which they can learn all about money management, budgeting, responsible spending, saving, investing, and much more.
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