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OT-Kids Chores

LikeMinded's picture

Ok, I want to give our kids (Bio and SKIDS) more responsibilities, but hubby is not on the same page.

What chores would you give a 12 year old and a 13 year old.

I'm asking that they make their own school lunches and help with the dishes at night.

They already help fold laundry, make their own beds, and help set the table.

Comments

HotMess's picture

At age 8 I was doing laundry, cleaning the bathroom, and helping with the dishes. Age 9 I had to bathe my younger brothers. Age 10 I made my lunch and my younger brothers' lunches for summer day camp every day. At 12 and 13, it was my job to clean the kitchen by myself every night. We had no dishwasher, and I was grounded one day for every dirty dish found in the cupboards. My mother, of course, has no memory of this.
Your children and your husband's children are plenty old enough to have more responsibility. And don't pay them for doing these things because nobody gets paid to do house work. If you want to get paid to wash dishes, get a job in a restaurant.
To ensure the work gets done, you have one weapon in your arsenal that your parents did not: the WI-FI password.

Indigo's picture

At her household, SGD-12 is expected to cook a simple dinner once/week, dishes every evening, laundry, clean bathrooms, vacuum, clean her room. At SO's house she is expected to ... uhm, flush the toilet ... and clean up any messes she makes if it is discovered before she leaves ? (Granted he only sees her for one overnight/week, but it's an issue.)

My BS-14 shovels snow (our house and my mother's), shovels horse poop, cleans his bathroom, walks dog; makes his own snacks including macaroni/cheese, ramen noodles, sandwiches etc. Special dinners he makes the pies --- the last one he made was a lime cheesecake pie, yummm. Less consistently, BS will do the dinner dishes, his own laundry, cleans his room and helps my mother for a few hours/week.

When I was young (elementary school), I set the table daily, did the dishes every night, took care of the animals and cleaned my room. Saturday morning I washed the kitchen floor, dusted, vacuumed main living areas and cleaned the main bathroom.

Cooooookies's picture

At their ages, they can do just about everything regarding household chores. However, since your DH isn't on board, it won't work. You'll be the only one fighting to give them responsibility while your DH sits back and lets you be the bad guy.

At 12 I was doing everything except cook meals because there usually wasn't enough food for that so we'd always go out for dinner.

Monchichi's picture

I have no advise, as everyone has already said "hubby is not on the same page." You are wasting your time.

moeilijk's picture

They need to be taught how to do each chore.
They need to be taught how to organize themselves to do each chore.
They need to be taught how to enjoy doing some chores - might as well have fun, right?
They need to be taught how to arrange their days/weeks so they can manage the responsibility of chores, school, social life, down-time.

For that to happen, they either have to be self-motivated, or parent-motivated.

At those ages, there's no reason they can't do everything an adult can do, chore-wise.

twoviewpoints's picture

Not on same page? I'm curious as to DH's reasoning behind his objections. The few tasks you mention implementing sound very reasonable.

LikeMinded's picture

My DH is really too nice. He does everything for everyone... and he has a bit of that post-divorce guilt going on.

We're getting there, baby steps, lol!

Teas83's picture

Like others have said, if your husband isn't on the same page you're probably wasting your time.

I've tried to implement chores for SD7, and my husband is on board when we discuss it. But when it comes time to actually get her to do anything, he thinks the things I've come up with are too hard for someone who is "just a little kid", as he says.

There was one day that he had her do some dusting in the living room for maybe 10 minutes. Later on that day I reminded him that she needed to clean up her mess in the toy room, and he said, "But she's been cleaning all day!"

I grew up on a farm/ranch so I was used to doing all kinds of chores by about age 5. My siblings and I had at least 1 hour of outside chores to do on school days (feeding the animals, shoveling manure, etc.) and bigger jobs to do on weekends that took several hours each day, if not all day (moving cattle from one field to another on horseback, branding cattle, doing vaccinations, setting up corrals, shearing sheep, fixing fences, etc.). I can't even take my husband seriously when he says that my suggestions for chores for SD to do are too hard.

It's definitely not too much to expect teenagers to do the chores that others have suggested on here.

Cover1W's picture

Exactly my situation, down to the farm work.
I just laugh when DP says "It's just too hard for them to do x, y or z."
I think he really means "It's too hard for ME to make sure they do x, y or z."

Cover1W's picture

Agree with others.
We had "chores" for a while, begun by me, horrified that SDs didn't do/help with ANYTHING.
They worked!
Until the SDs started complaining (and they got money for the chores!) that they thought the chores "took too much of their time." WTF? Clean room once a week was "too much time" out of their hectic day.

Then DP backed away from it and all of it stopped.

At ages 10 and 12 they have NO chores still.
The only thing they are expected to do is clear THEIR OWN place at the table after dinner.

This is a major reason why I disengaged. I do not clean one iota of anything up after them. If I have to (in shared living space) I either trash it or donate it.

If your SO isn't 100% on board forget about it.

kathc's picture

At that age they should be helping with cleaning of common areas of the home (bathroom/kitchen/living room) maybe not the ENTIRE room but at least sweep/mop/vacuum the floors, dusting in the living room, wiping down counters in the kitchen and bath.

Also helping outdoors, raking/mowing the yard, shoveling snow, etc.

LikeMinded's picture

Thanks everyone, I'm going to read this entire thread to my DH. I think it will be quite helpful.

He's not "against" chores, when we talk about them, but he tends to slide into doing things for everyone(even me). He doesn't realize that the kids need to learn.

There's a lot of pity-parenting and pity-grand-parenting going on, and it's silly because our kids are doing great (despite that several have learning disabilities and whatnot).

Also, it felt like we had it all under control, like a well-oiled machine, but now tweens are turning into teens and we need to adjust with them.

I had to do chores growing up (although grandma doesn't remember, lol!).

My 4-year-old is as independent as me, and my MIL wants to spoon-feed him, uggghhhhh! I hate all this coddling. I have teenagers who don't know what to do when it's raining, they just stand their like the turkey who doesn't know to go into the barn when there's a storm. I know it doesn't rain much where we are but geeze, get a jacket, or an umbrella, or stand under the porch... don't just stare at me waiting for me to fix it!

I think we as a society are raising incompetent children and then we are shocked that they fail to launch.