Children aren't doing housework — here's why parents should give them chores

Dr Caoimhe O’Reilly was lead investigator in University of Limerick (UL) research, published in 2021, that looked at gender inequalities in household tasks undertaken by children. She is not surprised at the low levels of chores done by children. “It’s very much in line with previous research,” O’Reilly says. “Children are busy — they spend a lot of time at school; they’ve a lot of homework.

“And for parents, there’s coaching involved in getting children to do chores. Children mightn’t do the job right; the parent might have to do it a second time. It comes down to time and patience and the idea that ‘it’s faster to do it myself’’.”

Yet doing household chores is good for children’s development. “It gives life skills that help them become more independent. It fosters a sense of responsibility,” says O’Reilly, who cites a University of Minnesota study that doing chores in childhood is a strong predictor of success in life.

“Learning the skills of hard work, self-discipline and concentration can be applied to so many aspects of life, such as the world of work or school, where you’re expected to do what you have to do, regardless of how you feel about it,” says O’Reilly, adding that 2022 research shows that doing chores can positively impact children’s academic outcomes.

Though knowing how difficult it can be “to get the kids to do anything at all”, Dr Mike Quayle, professor in social psychology at UL, says he is still taken aback at how little children are helping with household tasks today. “It’s almost like parents have dropped the expectation that children should be doing anything to help.”

Quayle believes we need a “cultural shift” towards parents having higher expectations of children around housework. He cites the many benefits for children and the family. “In families today, each person is often doing their own thing independently. Doing chores is a way for everybody to pull together, like Ireland’s Fittest Family, just with chores. And it’s not going to be wonderfully entertaining, but there’s a sense of all being in it together.

“It’s a way for parents and children to be co-operative actively together — they’re a team — and this promotes family wellbeing.”

Quayle says children get a great sense of achievement when adults take pleasure from the work they have done: “Their work needs to be noted and appreciated, that you love the meal they made or that you’re sitting in a clean room. This gives children a voice in the family and helps them grow in to themselves. They get a sense of contributing — it develops a sense of the family being a unit.”

Chores build connection

Dr Sinéad Smyth, associate professor at Dublin City University’s School of Psychology, says having children and teens do chores is excellent for their social development: “If they’re participating in the upkeep of the house, they’re looking after themselves — and developing independence and autonomy — but they’re also looking after others by looking after the environment everybody’s living in.”

This dual-benefit element is related to increased pro-social behaviour, says Smyth — behaviour that benefits others, not just yourself. “It’s a really important social skill and will impact how they develop future relationships, whether personal or work.”

So why the low expectation on children to do chores? Smyth attributes it partly to busy working parents feeling they must compensate when they do have downtime by entertaining their children: “Sometimes, parents feel pressure to engage with their children by entertaining them. Whereas when they’re actively engaging with them while doing something simple together [like a household task] — doing this often and repetitively — it can be very grounding and good for the
connection.”

Smyth says the chores dynamic can change when parents are working during the day: “There’s a limit then to what can be done in the house during daytime hours, particularly when children are small. Tasks like cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, or putting on a wash, mightn’t be done until the child is in bed.

“It means children aren’t having ‘doing-chores’ modelled for them — it’s just not going to be in their repertoire to do them, or in their parents’ repertoire to ask them to do chores.”

O’Reilly’s research, which used data from the published Growing Up in Ireland study, found that by the time girls reached 13, they were doing similar amounts of chores as they had been doing at nine; but boys were doing less at 13 than they had been doing at nine.

Her research also found big gender differences in the types of chores being done: “Chores like cooking, cleaning, hoovering, washing dishes or emptying the dishwasher, helping with younger brothers and sisters, helping with an elderly or sick relative in the family, boys were doing these, but more girls were doing them. And more boys than girls were helping in the garden, putting out the bin and cleaning the car.”

With nine-year-old girls doing more chores than their male peers, and with the gap widening even more at 13, O’Reilly says: “Boys have more time to pursue more things, like doing their hobbies. And they’re also learning that ‘housework is a female responsibility’.”

Equality within the home

Quayle — a supervisor on the research led by O’Reilly — says that when it comes to gender roles, there is an onus on parents to model fairness. “In the first phase of gender equality, we focused a lot on women having equal opportunities outside the home.

“But we didn’t focus enough on people who aren’t women having equal responsibility in the home. 

As parents, we’ve a responsibility to bring feminism in to the home, which means having clear expectations that boys will pull their weight around chores as much as girls.

Quayle understands it can be tough to get children on board doing chores: “But once you find a groove of what everyone’s responsible for, it does give a sense of everyone sharing the load, being part of the team.”

Smyth has the following tips for getting children to help out more:

• If there’s a chore you’d like your child to take responsibility for, practise it with them when there’s no time pressure. If asking them to do a chore, ensure the time’s genuinely there for them to do it. Also, make sure they’re able to do what you’re asking. Some research suggests younger children are better able to do household tasks related to themselves, such as putting their clothes in the hamper or making their bed.
• As they get older, make it a teamwork activity — they’re doing it for everybody. Give choice. Do you want to wash or dry? Ask them if there’s any way we can get a wash in on a Tuesday and Thursday as well as a Saturday. If they’re involved, they’re more likely to remember, to take responsibility.
• Look for progress, not perfection. We tend to say, ‘It’ll be done my way if I do it’. See chores as a way to develop responsibility, autonomy and social skills. Recognise that building skills is good enough — it doesn’t have to be perfect.
• If your child is resisting doing the chores then try to figure out why. Is the task competing with something they’d rather be doing? Is there a better time? Are you asking them to do it later in the day, when they’re more likely to be tired and dysregulated? Is it a very long or vague task, like ‘tidy your room’? Instead, get specific. Say ‘Can you pick up the Lego?’ or ‘Can you hoover the room?’
• Make it fun and less like drudgery. Set a timer for 10 minutes and see who can do the most tidying in their room. Putting in the effort will pay dividends — developing children in all sorts of ways, with the bonus that parents get some downtime.