A Different Perspective on Chores

The other day as she was getting out the vacuum, Goobie said to me, “I bet you’re glad you had kids so we can help you clean, right, Mom?” While it is lovely that my children are old enough to make significant contributions to the household chores, “helping me clean” (shockingly) is not actually at the top of the list of reasons why I had children–let alone why I assign my kids to do chores. So why do I see chores as a valuable necessity for kids? I believe that having regular household chores does the following:

• Teaches life skills.
• Teaches responsibility.
• Contributes to the family’s feeling of team spirit and each individual’s sense of pride in the home.

Why is it that kids are most excited about helping to clean when they’re least competent at it–or when it’s not required of them?

Though I think chores are important, I’ve sometimes struggled with the execution of that principle. When my kids were very small, I made them chore charts: a little slider to move from “To Do” to “Done!” to show that they had remembered to clear their dishes, put their laundry down the chute, and pick up their toys before bed. But after their initial excitement, I found that I was forever having to remind them to do their chores, and often I found it easier to pick up the dirty clothing myself than to get their attention, indicate what needed doing, and endure the whining while they did it. Making sure your kids actually do their chores takes work!

Eventually, those basic chores became second nature, and I felt the kids were ready to learn more ways to contribute to the family, but I again struggled with execution. Should chores happen daily or weekly? Should each child be assigned one set of chores, or should they be allowed to choose from a list? Should chores be done at a certain time, or should the kids have the freedom to choose when to do them? After several false starts, we’ve settled on a system that has now served our family well for several years. While it now needs some expanding so they learn new, more complicated skills, here’s what has worked for us.

Family Book Club 2020-2021: The Flavor of the U.S. for Middle Grades

To be honest, I’ve never loved the idea of teaching a “Literature” class.  I’ve done it as a brick-and-mortar school teacher, since it was required of me, but I always felt a bit as if I was killing the story for everyone by asking them to analyze every aspect of every chapter as they went.  There’s definitely a place for literary analysis, but I don’t think it should hinder that first-read-through enjoyment.

Up until this year in our homeschool, I haven’t had any required reading.  I’ve wanted my kids to read for enjoyment and to grow naturally as readers–and subsequently, as writers and thinkers, since reading teaches you to write and expands your world.  There were long stretches of time when one or another of my kids didn’t do much reading at all.  Though if I’m being fair, that’s not strictly true: they simply weren’t reading formally.  They’d obsess over video game Wiki pages, write notes to their siblings and read the responses, browse magazines I’d left open on the counter, reminisce by reading through a long-loved picture book, or giggle up a storm at one of the cartoon anthologies my husband and I have from days of yore.  So they were reading, but I bit my fingernails wondering if they were doing enough.  You know how that goes?

At this point, my twelve-year-old is re-reading the Septimus Heap series at top speed, having recently read through every Rick Riordan book ever written. My eleven-year-old has transitioned from a Rick Riordan obsession to a memoir/biography obsession.  My nine-year-old is still in the eclectic reading phase: he’ll pore over military encyclopedias, read Calvin & Hobbes until he’s practically got the anthology memorized, devour elementary nonfiction on topics that fascinate him, and make his way through picture books of the long-and-difficult variety.  Most importantly to me, all three of my kids see reading as something they enjoy and pursue of their own volition.

Here are some of the books we read this past year. (A couple more were borrowed from friends or are currently loaned out to others.)

This past year, however, I decided it was time to help them stretch beyond the bounds of their natural inclinations.  There are SO MANY good books out there that my kids weren’t reading: either the cover art wasn’t exciting, the genre didn’t appeal, or the text looked too intimidating.  Thus, the Family Book Club was born.  Okay, okay, so ‘Love isn’t participating since we meet while he’s working, but hey, ⅘ isn’t bad, right?