6 Ways to Get Kids Excited About Household Chores

Getting your children to do chores might be a struggle, but what if you could get kids excited about household chores? We've got some tips that just might help you out!

Most kids are not naturally excited about doing household chores. Just the word “chore” itself makes it sound like work you don’t want to be doing. The thing is, chores are a part of life. Everyone has to do them and the sooner you get your children used to the idea of it, the better off they will be in the future. When you teach your kids to be excited about household chores, you are empowering them to take responsibility in their own lives. You are teaching them to do work and about life, even the down and dirty parts of it. This is a life skill your kids will continue to use in a variety of ways throughout their lives, so let's start molding their work ethic while they're still young, yes?

6 ways to get kids get excited about household chores:

Turn it into a game – This doesn’t just work for little kids; there are ways to make chores a game for kids of all ages. It all depends on the chore and the child(ren) in question. If you have multiple children, you might even be able to turn it into a competition between them. Who can unpack and correctly put away the groceries bags the quickest? Who cleans the floors the best? Just be sure praise and reward everyone who participates. Maybe the winner gets a prize, maybe they just get bragging rights. Either way, when children help with chores, everyone is a winner.

Lead by example – When you have to do chores, do you mope and wine or do you get up and get going? It’s not always easy to act excited about chores, especially at the end of a long work day. But if you complain, you’re teaching your kids to complain. So set the right example if you want your kids to follow.

Offer rewards – While you want your kids to learn the importance of doing chores because that need to be done, you can still motivate them by offering small rewards. It could be a prize box, a monetary allowance, a treat or dessert, or even time with you as compensation for doing their chores. We have a few free chore charts for kids where they can check off their daily chores. At the end of the week you can reward them with a prize or special event, or you can just give them lots and lots of praise.

Do them together – Kids love to spend time with their parents, despite what you may think. You can help them get excited about chore time if you jump in and do it together. You can talk, sing along to your favorite songs or otherwise enjoy a good time while getting some of the housework done. It will become a time you both look forward to.

Give them more challenges – Sometimes you need to up the ante. Making the chore more challenging can get your kids excited about doing them. Kids of all ages like to be challenged. It keeps them motivated and it shows you trust them enough to give them more difficult things to do.

Give them chore coupons – You can create a chore card or coupon that you punch out whenever your child does chores. When they get their card filled, they can turn it in for a prize. There are several variations of this so you can personalize it and make it your own but the idea is the same. The kids fill like they are working toward a tangible goal and this is good motivation.
So what do you think of the list? Will you try some of these will your kids? Did it conjure up some ideas of your own that you can use to help your kids get excited about their next chore session? Use this list as motivation and then find what works best for your own family.

What do you do to get your kids excited about doing chores?

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Disclosure: Image credit: Adobe Stock / Author:  didesign