In a family as large as ours, it’s vital that each member pulls his or her own weight from an early age if we’re all to maintain sanity in our household. As early as toddlerhood, each child was taught how to put his toys in the toy boxes before bed time and to bring her dirty laundry to our laundry room baskets. Preschool children learned how to fold dish towels and bath towels (because there are ALWAYS clean baskets of those waiting to be folded), as well as removing and remaking bed sheets each week. I used to do it all myself, but in time I learned that in allowing them to do it themselves, despite the crooked sheets, they improved with practice!

As each child grows, more responsibilities are given. After arriving home from school, there is no snack or play time until all backpacks are emptied, homework is placed on our dining room table to be done, and lunchboxes are put where they belong.
       Our three girls share a bathroom and our three boys share another … and all are responsible to keep them clean … every. single. day. Our three boys share our garbage and recycling products duties which includes rolling out the bins for pick-up days. In turn, our three girls are responsible for sweeping/mopping our downstairs, high-traffic floors.
        By the age of 11 each began to share the kitchen clean-up duties as noted on a written chart on our kitchen bulletin board. Next to it is a large white board entitled “SCHEDULE” where each family member is required to mark his or her weekly schedule including school classes, after-school jobs, extracurricular activities and social activities. Updating this schedule chart is part of each child’s responsibilities because unmarked changes cause chaos!
        By the start of college, each of our children is required to take care of his or her own personal laundry, but must contribute to the towel/linen folding and putting-away duties.
        My husband and I were raised to contribute to our family chores, and I’ve noticed that over the years of strict compliance to our duty roster, each of our children has come to appreciate living in a fairly well-kept, well-running home.
        Do chores get neglected? Of course, occasionally, and is usually due to some unexpected conflict, or a teenager’s negative attitude, but our home continues to stand and run in a fairly smooth fashion.
        Today, our twin girls are now 24 (each will or has recently moved out), our middle set of boy/girl twins are 19, and our youngest set (boys) are now 11. Over all, our kids have learned how to juggle their home chores with schoolwork, jobs and social activities … all of which are good life lessons needed to bring them into responsible adult life, a reality that comes all too quickly!

Our three girls share a bathroom and our three boys share another … and all are responsible to keep them clean … every. single. day. Our three boys share our garbage and recycling products duties which includes rolling out the bins for pick-up days. In turn, our three girls are responsible for sweeping/mopping our downstairs, high-traffic floors.
        By the age of 11 each began to share the kitchen clean-up duties as noted on a written chart on our kitchen bulletin board. Next to it is a large white board entitled “SCHEDULE” where each family member is required to mark his or her weekly schedule including school classes, after-school jobs, extracurricular activities and social activities. Updating this schedule chart is part of each child’s responsibilities because unmarked changes cause chaos!
        By the start of college, each of our children is required to take care of his or her own personal laundry, but must contribute to the towel/linen folding and putting-away duties.
        My husband and I were raised to contribute to our family chores, and I’ve noticed that over the years of strict compliance to our duty roster, each of our children has come to appreciate living in a fairly well-kept, well-running home.
        Do chores get neglected? Of course, occasionally, and is usually due to some unexpected conflict, or a teenager’s negative attitude, but our home continues to stand and run in a fairly smooth fashion.
        Today, our twin girls are now 24 (each will or has recently moved out), our middle set of boy/girl twins are 19, and our youngest set (boys) are now 11. Over all, our kids have learned how to juggle their home chores with schoolwork, jobs and social activities … all of which are good life lessons needed to bring them into responsible adult life, a reality that comes all too quickly!

The above article was submitted to the Epoch Times on 2/20/19 for story contributions of “Do you encouraging your children to participate in household duties?”