Co-ordinating chores evenly amongst family members can be difficult.

Leave complaints of “it’s not fair” and “why do I have to do that?” behind with our simple tips that get everyone involved.

Tips To Split Chores Fairly Around The Home

1. Pre-Plan The Scenario Before Calling The Family Together

It’s a good idea to get the whole family involved in the decision making of how chores should be split. But you need to be one step ahead of the conversation. Draft out a plan in your head (or on paper if that’s better for you).

What exactly do you want help with? For example, is it easy tasks like packing/unpacking the dishwasher or more involved tasks like preparing dinner or mowing lawns.

Why do you want help with certain tasks – it it for convenience or is it because it’s a valuable life skill your child should learn. For example, you might want your 11 year old to be on cooking duty and your 4 year old putting away their freshly washed clothes because it’s a life lesson. Whereas your 12 year old taking the washing off the line before you get home from work is more convenient for you.

Who would you prefer to do each task? For example, you might prefer the 14 year old to take the trash out while the 6 year old sweeps the kitchen floor.

When do you want these tasks done? Set some boundaries. For example, is during the commercial break on their favorite tv show acceptable for you?

Once you have blue-print of how you want this conversation to go, call the family together. It might not work out exactly as you planned, but you’ve already armed yourself with acceptable limits you’re willing to work with.

2. List The Tasks

Armed with your plan from step 1, you don’t need to start the meeting dictating what should be done.

Encourage everyone to make a suggestion about tasks that need to be done and who is a good candidate for doing it.

This is good practice for your kids. And it’s a win-win for you. You will get things done and it instills a sense of responsibility in every household member.

This step will be successful if you follow our checklist;

• List down the possibility of tasks for everybody before assigning someone. This provides a backup should something go astray in the planning
• Break down the work as a daily or weekly task
• Write it down in a calendar with date, the assigned person and work to do
• Make the work for younger kids a continual job so it becomes automatic for them.  Extra tasks during free time can be added along the way. For bigger kids, rotate tasks to keep them from the “why do I have to” complaint.
• Write down possible consequences for those who fail to do their job
• Do the planning with everybody present. It will make the chore a collective idea while everybody chimes in their opinion along the way.
• And lastly, if you think you need to, get them to sign the schedule plan to get everybody’s commitment.

3. Assign Age Appropriate Tasks

Assign tasks that are suited for age but don’t let this limit you. If the task is hard, make sure it is adult-assisted. Kids love to help in grown-up tasks. It gives them a sense of grown-up feels. You can also schedule group tasks for kids.

Try to avoid assigning chores based on gender.  Rotating tasks based on age will help kids learn variety and avoid stereotyping.

Need A Quick Fix?

If these tips are too regimented for your household, here a couple of quick tips you could also consider.

• List down chores and let everybody pick their tasks randomly, out of a hat.
• Group tasks of same level of difficulty together and let everyone choose their own.
• Colour code daily and weekly tasks and everyone has to choose one of each color.
• Establish a reward system for kids. Give tokens after their chores are done to encourage them to do more. Token rewards could be TV or game time, having the chance to choose their snacks, or even monetary reward if a certain level of token is reached.

FREE Weekly Chores Roster Printable

To help you get started, click here for your FREE Weekly Chores Roster printable (it’s part of our To-Do List bundle).