Which household chores can a child do? What research says

Your toddler grabs the broom the moment you start sweeping. Your school-age child sighs when asked to take the bins out. Both can do more than you might think, and both learn more from it than just how to tidy up. Here is which chores suit children at different stages and what researchers know about them.

The answer in one sentence

The urge to help comes early

In 2006, Felix Warneken and Michael Tomasello at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology tested whether 18-month-olds would help adults. The researcher "accidentally" dropped a peg and could not reach it. Nearly all 24 toddlers helped at least once. In 84 per cent of cases, they did it within the first ten seconds. Nobody asked them, and nobody praised them.

Even earlier, in 1982, the psychologist Harriet Rheingold watched children aged 18, 24, and 30 months while their parents went about ordinary housework. The toddlers joined in on their own, laying the table or sweeping up scraps of paper.

That help is not always convenient. In 2018, Stuart Hammond and Celia Brownell surveyed more than 500 families with children aged one to four. Most parents admitted that their toddler's help sometimes just made the job harder.

What chores give children

In 2019, American researchers looked at data on almost 10,000 children. Parents reported how often their child did chores in kindergarten, and in third grade, the children rated themselves. Those who had chores more often gave themselves higher ratings for peer relationships, schoolwork, and life satisfaction. And those with any chores at all did better in maths tests.

In 2022, researchers at La Trobe University in Australia surveyed the parents of 207 children aged 5 to 13. Self-care chores, such as making their own snack, and family chores, such as making a meal for someone else, were associated with better working memory and self-control. Looking after a pet showed no such link.

Both studies show a correlation, not proof that chores made the children do better. Children who focus well may simply be trusted with harder jobs by their parents.

Which chores suit which child

The Australian parenting site Raising Children Network suggests matching chores to age and ability. A job that is too hard can be risky, and one that is too easy soon gets boring.

• Toddlers can put toys away after play.
• Preschoolers can lay the table and help make meals with an adult watching.
• Children aged 6 to 11 can water plants, feed pets, fold washing, take out the rubbish, help plan the shopping and cook, vacuum, mop, and empty the dishwasher.
• Teenagers can mow the lawn and cook a simple family meal once a week.

Age is only a guide. One five-year-old folds T-shirts neatly, while another is still learning. Watch your own child.

How to start without arguments

1. Do the job together a few times before handing it over. Show each step slowly.
2. Start with one or two chores. Once they become a habit, add another.
3. Do not redo it after them. A wonky folded towel is still folded. If needed, show them again the next day.
4. Tie each chore to a set time. Clear the plates after dinner, water the plants on Saturday. That way, you do not have to remind them every time.
5. The use of knives, the hob, and cleaning products should remain under adult supervision, even once a child helps confidently.
6. Say exactly what went well. "You put the forks on the left, just right" means more than a simple "well done".

Children who pitch in without being asked

Psychologists Lucía Alcalá, Barbara Rogoff, and their colleagues compared families from two communities in Mexico. In a community with Indigenous heritage, many children aged 6 to 8 took on complex work for the whole family on their own initiative, according to their parents. Nobody had to ask them. In the city, where parents had spent many years in Western-style schools, children helped too, but rarely on their own.

Children from the first community more often described working things out with their family and doing jobs together. Children from the city talked mostly about their own individual contributions. Perhaps the difference is that a child sees themselves as part of a shared effort, not a helper on request. So, a list of household jobs that a child sees every day and ticks off themselves could be a first step towards that kind of independence.