Does everyone else's teens do their own laundry?

[Anonymous]

My kids are 11 and 13 and have never done their own laundry. I thought this was normal, but over in another thread, most commenters are saying their kids have done their own laundry since they were tweens/teens. For context, I don't mind -- I telework and it's easy to throw some laundry in over the course of the day. As housework goes, I don't hate it. Also, I never did my own laundry as a kid. I had other chores but my parents did my laundry for me until I went to college. Do most kids transition to doing their own laundry at some point while still living at home?

[Anonymous]

No. My 15 yo will do an emergency load for himself on occasion if he has something specific he wants washed. But no, it just doesn’t make sense to do it that way in our household.

I don’t think it’s as common as dcum makes it out to be.

[Anonymous]

We are a household of 2 and it doesn’t make sense to do one’s own laundry.
DS has other chores tho and I can ask him to help me out with this or that.

[Anonymous]

Every so often, I show my kids how to do their laundry, but they don’t actually do it regularly. My younger tween used to love doing laundry with me when she was little. Alas, it was a bedtime delay tactic.

[Anonymous]

In my family high school students do their own laundry but if they get behind or need a favor a parent may help.

None of the men in the family sort colors. The boys are pretty clean in general but do not bother to look for stains. So mom does her own separately.

[Anonymous]

I learned to do my own laundry at a very young age and so I taught my kids the same. I never really thought about if it was the norm but it did help me a lot and was easy to teach. I just had to accept that the clean clothes were likely to live in the laundry basket. By HS, we added laundering their own sheets and changing them.

[Anonymous]

My 13 year old has soccer most days and her uniform needs to get washed before practice. So she throws in her laundry most days and then will throw in some towels or her sister’s laundry or something to make it a full load. My younger DD just turned 9 and doesn’t do laundry.

[Anonymous]

I never did my laundry growing up and my kids don’t do any either except for the college aged one. It’s something that doesn’t really need much instruction and I don’t think it’s unusual for 18 year olds are doing laundry for the first time in college or their own place.

[Anonymous]

My kids transitioned around 10/11 years old. Everyone in my house does their own laundry, even my husband.

[Anonymous]

Mine start doing their own laundry at 10, but I continued to do things like baseball/softball or special handling things. They already know how to do it really from helping, but I have a laminated card with the basic steps in the laundry room. The only one who’s been a bit resistant is the “baby.” I have to remind him more often and he’s more likely to forget loads, etc.

I think as long as they learn to do laundry before they go off to college any age is ok.

[Anonymous]

Newlt implemented a routine for my boys, 14 and 10. They take turns doing the "kids: laundry. One has Saturdays to put a load in (wash and dry), and the other has Tuesday to do the same. They are responsible to take it out of dryer and sort it and leave on respective beds so each kid folds their own clothes and puts them away before bedtime.

It has been working well for last 4 months.

[Anonymous]

We done do individual laundry, but since my youngest was about 11/12ish we’ve done what we call sticks. We have popsicle sticks with five tasks written on them (there are 3 kids and 2 parents in our house) several times a week…probably works out to 3-4 times. Immediately after dinner everyone picks a stick at random and does the task.

Table: means clear all the dishes off the table and into the dishwasher. Put leftovers in the fridge. Wipe down the table

Pots: means clean any pots and pans or bowls left from dinner preparation and wipe down the kitchen

Laundry: means fold anything in the dryer, bring the piles up and put them outside whoever’s room, put anything in the washer into the dryer, collect enough dirty clothes to run a wash, and run a wash.

Bathroom: means clean/wipe down of main level bathroom.

Reset: set timer for 10 minutes and tidy throughout the house/clean up trash

So all my kids do laundry, at least sometimes. But they don’t do their own laundry exactly. The overall system works great for us, especially because my husband and I do it too.

[Anonymous]

My kids started doing their own around 10.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids started doing their own around 10.

+1

[Anonymous]

^. Me again, I didn’t teach them because I didn’t want to do theirs, laundry is my favorite chore. I taught them because they need to have responsibility and they need to learn how to do it. I also started teaching them to cook and do yard work when they were in elementary school.