Help me de-infantilize my elementary aged kids

[Anonymous]

While it's totally valid to expect more, I think you have to view this first as teaching them how to do things, then handing a task over. It may be tough.

My 6yo wash, dry, fold and put away their laundry. I remind them on days that we don' have sports afterschool that this is a good day to do it, but that is about it. If they fail to wash it regularly, they have to wear clothes they don't like. I don't step in. They have to put clothes away, and they have to hang certain clothes up (church clothes), but if they wad their school clothes in a drawer, I don't comment. It is their choice to be wrinkly hobos. We started this by me folding everything and handing them stacks to put in drawers. Phase 2 was them sorting and folding some clothes (socks, undies, pajamas) alongside me. Phase 3 they did all folding, phase 4 doing washer and dryer with supervision, phase 5 frequent reminders at every step of the proccess, and now we are in phase 6.

They also keep their rooms neat, help with family meal prep and play pretty well independently and together, but all of these are skills and in order to teach them you need to figure out what the component parts are and teach those. But the bigger challenge for you and DH is to stop holding yourselves responsible for the children's lives/choices. You have to be okay with them failing.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have trouble doing all this as a dual income working family with a commute and more than one child? I would love to help my children out to learn more chores, but between school and sports there is so little time together to focus on chores and school seems to always come before everything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have trouble doing all this as a dual income working family with a commute and more than one child? I would love to help my children out to learn more chores, but between school and sports there is so little time together to focus on chores and school seems to always come before everything else.

I almost think it is easier as a dual working family. If we don't due the chores together, they don't get done. Yes we have a cleaning lady and the kids know which night we have to pick up because "the cleaning lady cleans the house, she doesn't pick up the house" (I hated "cleaning" for the "cleaning lady" as a kid - we "pick-up" for the cleaning lady!) And we need the cleaning lady, she creates a deadline.

Often on Saturdays I'll say, OK we just spend 1 hour at sports (even though it was longer, the game itself was an hour). The house needs 1 hour of your attention before we move on to something else.
Sometimes I'll do the "gimmie 5" - I go room to room and I say I need 5 things to pitch or donate. I would love more spring cleaning, but 5 is easy enough (I don't fight if I see 5 magazines get recycled)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Relax, let them be kids. There is plenty of time for them to act like adults.

THIS!

Do what works for you, OP. If you enjoy doing stuff for them, keep doing it. Focus on making sure they appreciate it instead of feeling like you have to make them do it themselves. Some of these PPs seem to put way too much effort into teaching their kids to do chores. Your kids need to be able to do all of this by the time they leave home, but you have time. They don't need to learn all of it now. Of course they should have chores and responsibility, but no need to get all pinterest-y about it with laundry trains and such.

I just work part time right now and my kids are in school So it makes sense for me to do almost everything. They are basically just expected to clean up after themselves and help out as needed. They learn about cooking/cleaning/laundry in bits and pieces when I feel like it. It's not rocket science, so I don't feel like they need 18 years of experience loading the dishwasher by the time they leave home.

As for motivating them to do something - when there is something they want, tell them they can have it when the task is done. "Mom, can I have ice cream?" "Yes, when the living room is picked up." Be prepared for him to forego the ice cream and leave the living room a mess. That's fine. When he asked to go to his friends house the next day, say "Yes, when the living room is picked up." You just have to be willing to leave the task undone and deny him what he's asking for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While it's totally valid to expect more, I think you have to view this first as teaching them how to do things, then handing a task over. It may be tough.

My 6yo wash, dry, fold and put away their laundry. I remind them on days that we don' have sports afterschool that this is a good day to do it, but that is about it. If they fail to wash it regularly, they have to wear clothes they don't like. I don't step in. They have to put clothes away, and they have to hang certain clothes up (church clothes), but if they wad their school clothes in a drawer, I don't comment. It is their choice to be wrinkly hobos. We started this by me folding everything and handing them stacks to put in drawers. Phase 2 was them sorting and folding some clothes (socks, undies, pajamas) alongside me. Phase 3 they did all folding, phase 4 doing washer and dryer with supervision, phase 5 frequent reminders at every step of the proccess, and now we are in phase 6.

They also keep their rooms neat, help with family meal prep and play pretty well independently and together, but all of these are skills and in order to teach them you need to figure out what the component parts are and teach those. But the bigger challenge for you and DH is to stop holding yourselves responsible for the children's lives/choices. You have to be okay with them failing.

Good grief, this seems like a lot of work!

Since my kids were 5 and 7, I started dumping their clean laundry on their bed and told them to put it away. They're not idiots, so they figured out how to do this without instructions. Our washing machine has a very large drum, so having them wash their own clothes did not make sense - a week's worth of their laundry was less than half a load. They are now 11 and 13, and this is the system (or lack thereof) that we still use for my 11 yo. I just now started having my 13 yo wash her own laundry. There was only one phase. I showed her where the detergent goes and showed her which setting to use. Then I showed her which dryer setting to use and suggested throwing in a dryer sheet. All of this took about 1 minute.

[Anonymous]

My kids do chores and are responsible ... AND they act crazy like that (5th grade and 1st grade boys). Part of it is just the age.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have trouble doing all this as a dual income working family with a commute and more than one child? I would love to help my children out to learn more chores, but between school and sports there is so little time together to focus on chores and school seems to always come before everything else.

YES. My kids are supposed to empty the dishwasher & garbage/take out recycling/feed & walk the dog which apparently is what most people assign to their 4 year olds. Mine are in middle and high school. Sometimes they do these things and sometimes I do them. I am just not one of those working moms who can consistently run a tight ship and stay on top of everything and I'm not going to beat myself up for not being a good example in the housework department (my DH is actually worse than the kids!)

I do want them to know how to cook a little, do laundry, etc. before they leave the house but really, if it happens the month before they go to college, that's fine with me.

[Anonymous]

Introduce a few new things at a time, but I'm in the camp that says that it's good for kids to have responsibilities.

I saw this someplace else but found that it worked for us - the kids get a tv show before bed, but it streams via an amazon fire device. So when we were in the initiation phase they needed to have their items completed in order to get that day's wifi password. We haven't needed that in a while because the chores became routine and the the kids took a lot more ownership of the appearance of our home etc.

[Anonymous]

I would love to know where everyone lives who posted here. I swear most of the kids I meet in NW DC, McLean, Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac have NO chores.