Should Kids Get Paid For Doing Chores?
This is a very important question that has divided parents for as long as I can remember: Should Kids Get Paid for Doing Chores? Part of the seminar I talked about in the Allowance post talked about creating terms to hold both your children and yourself responsible. As the parent, you want to set the amount of allowance to a point that is not outrageous that you can maintain to not break your commitment.
I kept my children’s allowance to a few dollars a week. It wasn’t meant to build them a 401K. The intention was to give them some fun money that was in their control, not mine. Sometimes, they would decide to get some candy or toy. Sometimes, they would actually plan and save for something they really wanted, like a specific game, book, or puzzle.
What does Allowance have to do with Chores?
For their part of the agreement, my children had specific duties to earn their allowance. It started with basic things like clearing the table after dinner, brushing their teeth, finishing their school work and handing it in on time. If they didn’t keep up with a responsibility, they got a warning. If they didn’t do their job after the warning, they didn’t get their allowance that week. They each got plenty of warnings, but I think they each only forfeited their allowance just once maybe twice at most.
I made a promise to myself to stick to my word with my kids as much as possible. They would totally test me to see if I would keep my end of the allowance and their end of the chores. Honestly, that’s a one of my daughter’s defining features. She always wants to know the rules and will push with all of her might to test them. If you give her a hard line not to cross, she will work as hard as she can to test your fortitude. If you are willing to bend that line, she loses all respect. As a mean mom, I kept strong to those lines. Doing chores was one of those lines.
As they got older, the chores required got more advanced. When they were in middle school and high school, they had to continue keeping their own spaces clean and cleaning up after themselves. We also split the bigger chores into 3 segments, 1) dusting and vacuuming the common areas, 2) cleaning the bathroom and kitchen, and 3) doing the laundry.
I coached them through on what was expected. And, because we rotated the duties, I knew the chores were done correctly every third week. They didn’t do everything to perfection, but it really gave them an appreciation for cleanliness. There’s nothing like seeing the mess on the floor cloth to make you realize how much dirt collects in one week.
The funny thing is, because they were held responsible for their own cleaning, they both developed some extra cleanliness routines (and clean shame me if I let my household cleanliness slide).
I knew my kids would never thank me for being the mean mom who made them do chores, but they sort of did, unofficially. My daughter’s Freshman year at college (at MIT), she was incensed that some of the people in her dorm had never done their own laundry and had no idea what to do. It annoyed her enough that she taught them all how to correctly do their own laundry.
So, yeah, being the mean mom who made her kids do chores worked for my kids.