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Key points
- Adolescent chores are unpaid personal and household work responsibilities that parents assign.
- Adolescents may resist chores because they express authority, are not fun to do, and cost personal freedom.
- Adolescent chores often requires parental effort and pursuit to be completed.
From family to family, there is no “right” or “wrong” when it comes to parents assigning or not assigning adolescent chores. Partly, I think, the decision can depend on personal history.
Reflecting back on their youth, parents may find different stories about "chore experience." Consider these two.
Account one: “I was the only child until my sister came along six years later. My parents believed their job was doing for us, not us doing for them. Although we helped sometimes, they pretty much took care of what needed doing around the home. The regular work we were expected to do was for school.” Children rarely did chores.
Account two: “We had five kids in the family, so it was all hands on deck most of the time. By age 4, I started helping, picking up, cleaning up, and daily preparation, while the older kids were expected to take some routine care of the younger ones. This was how our family was: everyone pitching in.” Children regularly did chores.
Chores
Chores are consistent work responsibilities that parents assign, most often to take care of her or his personal needs and to regularly fulfill some ongoing household functions. “You will do this for you” and “You will do this for us” are basic chore requirements. The justification is: “We’re all in this family together. Day-to-day, keeping a home takes a lot of work, so you need to do your share. Unpaid, these are family contributions that each of us is expected to freely make.”
The performance of chores has both specific and symbolic power. Specifically, they provide practical household help. “With chores, I do needed work.” Symbolically, they represent commitment: “Chores show my support of family.”
Resistance to chores
While the child, wanting to be like parents, welcomed giving this help as an empowering way of acting older, the more self-absorbed adolescent can resist and even resent these demands when she or he has better options. Common complaints about the necessity of chores that might include: “Why do I have to?” “I’m busy!” “I’m too tired!” “Not right now!” “I’ve got enough to do!”
Chores have three strikes against an adolescent liking them:
- They are being told what to do.
- They are work, and so not enjoyable.
- They are at the expense of personal freedom.
Timing of chores
This is why, if parents expect chores to be part of their adolescent’s growing responsibilities, they are best served by starting the practice early so it is assumed and unquestioned by the arrival of the teenage years. By age 3, the child has been encouraged to start helping out, and by age 5, she or he has assumed some regular self-management and small family responsibilities which the child can feel proud to do. Chores for older children tend to demand more responsibility. If parents wait until adolescence to start chores, it's often too late because by then, more adolescent resistance is likely to be aroused.
Dealing with resistance
Sometimes, to overcome resistance like argument, avoidance, and delay, parents may punish task resistance by withholding freedom. (“You can’t go unless your chores are done!”) Or they may materially reward chores by paying money (“Chores are how you earn your allowance”).
Personally, I think both these strategies are mistakes. In the first case, they make doing chores seem like a matter of free choice when it needs to be a no-choice family obligation. And in the second case they treat doing chores as a way of making money, when it needs to be donated labor. After all, parents don't get paid for all they do to maintain a home.
If you choose to have chores, it's best to treat them as routine family contributions that everyone kicks in for mutual support. Where there is resistance, resort to the best (albeit arduous) parenting strategy to get them done: relentless supervision. “Feel like it or not, in this family, chores are not a choice, they are part of your membership obligation to help support the family. Keeping after you is our obligation to ensure that they get done.”
And then, of course, be sure to thank the young person every time a chore is accomplished to avoid the complaint: “My parents never appreciate what I do to help!”
Deciding on chores
So, chores or no chores? There are arguments for both approaches.
Reasons why you might choose no chores:
- Chores create demands on parents.
- Completion takes parental insistence.
- Chores are one more thing to argue about.
- Dislike of chores can create dislike of parents.
- Chores are resented by teenagers who have enough to do.
Setting and supervising chores may just make extra work for weary parents.
Reasons why you might choose in favor of chores:
- Chores take household responsibility.
- Chores are tasks that build practical skills.
- Chores are family membership contributions.
- Chores are unpaid labor that support ongoing needs.
- Chores sacrifice some self-interest for the greater family good.
Doing regular chores helps children feel like a valued part of the family team. Whatever parents decide about their children and adolescents doing chores, I believe it is a debate worth having.
