by Barbara Kasey Smith

Created on: August 12, 2009   Last Updated: August 13, 2009

Should children be bribed to help with household chores? I may be from the old school but I do not believe children should be bribed to do any chores. Parents are responsible for teaching their children how to do chores around the house. We should start assigning chores to our children as early as 2-3 years old. Small children should be taught at an early age to pick up and put away the toys they have been playing with. They should also be taught to pick up toys in their bedrooms and any that are found laying around the house.

Children in the age group from five years and up should have already been taught how to do their assigned chores and they should be doing them. We must instill in our children how to be neat and tidy people, and that it is important to do chores on their own, as well as other assigned chores they are not told to do. Children should be taught what responsibility is, and it is important to learn how to perform different chores in their lives. We need them to realize they are not going to always have "Mother" to do the chores for them. Teaching children how to clean and to be responsible is a great building block for them to become a successful and responsible person.

If we allow our children to never do a chore as they grow up, how will they ever learn how to function and be responsible for taking care of their property and for the way they look when they go out in public? We make cripples out of our children, and they can never function as mature adults if we do not teach them the art of doing chores in life. They'll be cripples for the rest of their life. If we bribe them to do everything in life, they'll expect a favor or money for everything they do in their lives. When we never assign them chores to do around the house, they'll never learn how to make a bed, vacuum a floor, wash dishes, wash their clothes, etc., they'll feel someone else should do it...and not them. Wouldn't this be terrible for a mother who has a houseful of children? A teenager who has never been taught how to do chores can be picked out of a crowd of at least ten or more children. They look unkempt and their clothes are dirty, and they actually don't give a heck about looking nice and well-groomed. Have you ever gone into a teenager's room, who never had any chores to undertake in their life? It's a total disaster and they are living in sheer filth...and they could care less.

Parents, the best gift we can give to our children is how to take care of themselves and the home they will live in after they are married and have a family. This is a real education in itself, and once they have been taught the necessity of doing chores in their young life, they'll carry it throughout their lives and be excellent in their own homes and they'll teach their children how to be responsible too.

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