Why Chores Are Important for Kids And How to Make Them More Fun

Chores… No one likes them, but they are always there. It is often hard to get kids involved in doing chores, at any age, especially because most adults don’t like doing them. However, since you cannot avoid chores around the house at all, it is important to learn how to do them and how to get the kids to like them. So, if you are a parent thinking of ways to include your kids in these activities, but don’t know how or why, here are some reasons why chores are important for the little ones, and how to make them more fun. 

Chores Teach Life Skills

Your kids won’t be kids forever, and they need to acquire basic life skills. Doing laundry, cooking, dividing budgets and cleaning are skills everyone needs, and you can start while they are young. No, you don’t have to teach your three-year-old how to turn on a washing machine, but you can start teaching them when the clothes need to go to the wash, or why cooking and cleaning are important. As they get older, they might try to avoid doing chores, but then you can make them fun. The best way to do this is to turn everything into a game and have your kids compete in who is going to clean their room faster, for example. 

Chores Teach Responsibility

In order for your kids to be self-reliant and responsible adults, they need to learn such skills through chores. If you assign your kids regular chores, it will teach them responsibility. Creating schedules and sticking to them is something they need to learn how to do. To make this more fun, you can create a chore board and embellish it with colorful markers, stickers, and smiley faces. 

Additionally, you can do the chores together and even squeeze in a side lesson on being responsible toward the rest of the world. For example, cleaning with eco-friendly products with your kids is a good way to teach them about sustainability. You can also prepare and pack lunches together every day and rely on sustainable cooking and packing, too. There are even colorful and eco-friendly beeswax food wraps which can be super fun for your kiddos to use. You can read more about these here and see how easy they are to use. 

Chores Teach Teamwork

Children should become productive members of the household, too, and you can achieve and train that through housework. No chores should be gendered and everyone can do their part at home. No matter if you have one or five children, you can all do the chores together and form a nice little team. This can also help kids learn how to be a part of a team and how to help other members achieve their goals. Later on, they can easily use such teamwork skills at school and later in life as well.

Chores Build Work Ethic

You don’t want your kids to grow up to be lazy and wait for someone else to do their work. So, start teaching them while they are young. A strong work ethic and responsibility are highly valued in life - in school and work - and it’s something your kids should have. You can easily make chores more fun by giving out rewards for a job well done. If they clean their room, let them play games for an hour; if they have helped clean the dishes, give them some sweets they have been craving. Rewards for a job well done provide entrepreneurial spirit and can inspire your kids to work and that good work can be rewarded. 

Making Them Fun

Kids love to play, and if you disguise chores in play they will be eager to do it. You can hide treats and sweets on the shelves and under knick-knacks and let your kids dust them. Also, you can create small competitions on who is going to clean something better or faster, or even set a timer for 10 minutes and let the family scatter around the house to tidy everything up. If your kids love costumes, you can appoint an “Inspector” each week and give them a badge to inspect and evaluate the quality of chores done. 

There are plenty of ways to make work more fun, especially for kids, so be creative and enjoy. As a result, your kids will have fun, they will become great team members of the family and they will certainly acquire some highly valued and important skills that will help them in life.