Chores for Jr. High or Middle Schoolers
Chore List for Children
It was a jarring conversation for some of my friends when I said, "Yes, my 13yr old is really in charge of all the meals, planning, cooking and shopping for the year."
I didn't start out thinking that was the goal or even a realistic possibility. We had read Little House On the Prairie when the girls were in 2nd grade & Kindergarten. In it, Ma left the girls (I think they were preteens) with the baby and the house for a week! They knew how to do all the work AND did the spring cleaning to surprise Ma.
When I first read that, I thought “HOW could Ma leave them like that? There were soooo many dangers in those days!” Then I started re-rethinking my perceptions on childhood. I honestly believe we have an artificial infancy concept of childhood. Rather than considering that childhood as the training ground for adulthood, our society thinks children are to be coddled, entertained and considered unable to be functioning, contributing members of society even while they’re children. Hmmm…. So if God made children capable of more responsibility, are we DISabling them to not let them live to that potential? Hmmmm.... food for thought and prayer for me.
So I made it a pie-in-the-sky goal that each of my children would know how to do every job in the house that I could teach them by the time they were 13. Then at 13 I would teach them to juggle all the things. I wasn’t taught how to multi-task or juggle and it took me YEARS of motherhood before I felt like I was doing anything but failing. I wanted my kids to be a little better off than that.
Each year, each child switches jobs to become proficient in a job for the year. This is the rough schedule of chores as the children progress in maturity.
Age 4 chore: Set the table
Age 5 chore: Sweep the floor
Age 6 chore: Wash the table / Mop the floor
Age 7 chore: Take out the trash
Age 8 chore: Empty the dishwasher
They had to empty it each time we ran it (2-3 times per day). YES, I lost alot of dishes on the ceramic floor this way so we ended up switching to plastic for our main dishes.
Age 9 chore: Laundry
Yes, all the laundry in the house - but each child over the age of about 8 had to fold and put away their own clean clothes.
Age 10 chore: Mow the lawn
Somewhere we often end up having a “catch-up” year – a kid will prefer a job and ask for an extra year on it before going to the next harder job -OR- they need more practice on a job and get stuck on it for another year until they’ve mastered it.
Age 11 chore: Wash Dishes
Dishes which included wiping down counters, etc. and keeping the kitchen clean after every meal.
Age 12 chore: Cook Dinner
I plan and they learn to cook dinner each night. I feel like it’s such a challenging task to get all the main and side dishes to come out at the same time and on the table hot (or cold) that it takes a lot of practice.
Age 13 chore: Meal Planning & Cooking for the family
I gave her as much input and advice from me as she wanted and I also looked everything over. Then I drove and went shopping with her.
If you'd like to learn more about how I meal planned and prepared to teach it to my 8th grader, take a look at the next post in the series:
Meal Planning for an 8th grader
