Dr. Sarah (00:02):

Ever wonder what psychologists moms talk about when we get together, whether we’re consulting one another about a challenging case or one of our own kids, or just leaning on each other when parenting feels hard, because trust me, even when we do this for a living, it’s still hard. Joining me each week in these special Thursday shows are two of my closest friends, both moms, both psychologists, they’re the people I call when I need a sounding board. These are our unfiltered answers to your parenting questions. We’re letting you in on the conversations the three of us usually have behind closed doors. This is Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions.

(00:43):

Hey, Dr. Emily Upshur. Welcome back.

Dr. Emily (00:46):

Hey, good to be here.

Dr. Sarah (00:48):

How are you?

Dr. Emily (00:49):

Good.

Dr. Sarah (00:52):

We are here on Beyond the Sessions segment of the Securely Attached podcast where we answer your listener questions. And today we have a quick DM that someone sent in. It’s a shorty, but a goodie.

Dr. Emily (01:07):

Great.

Dr. Sarah (01:07):

Would you recommend making my kids do chores? And if so, what age would you start introducing that to them?

Dr. Emily (01:16):

How old are they?

Dr. Sarah (01:19):

I dunno. But here is the reason why I wanted to make an episode about this one because I don’t know the answer to this, which is exactly why I wanted to ask you what you do with your kid so funny and be like, I dunno, let’s crowdsource this one.

Dr. Emily (01:34):

Yeah, it’s funny. I don’t have any, surprisingly, I don’t have any particularly strong feelings about chores, but I actually think it’s important to unpack what a chore is. I have strong feelings about my kids are 14, 11 and eight, and I have strong feelings about them making their bed in the mornings, but I also like a made bed and I don’t consider that a chore. I consider that a part of living in my household. So I think that I bring that example up only because I think there’s a really big distinction between things that you do to be a member of your household, like a community member and things in the chores world and things that are maybe a little bit above and beyond that. I do sort of try to distinguish that a little in my own household because I don’t want you to think there’s going to be some thing you get for every little thing you do around the house.

(02:37):

So that brings in, I guess, other questions around allowance or tying it to something else. But my overall feeling about chores is kids like to be helpful, so capitalize on it, kids of all ages to be helpful and feel good about. It’s an intrinsic motivation that I think we miss, and I think it’s really great to capitalize on having a role, having a job and competency and feeling good about being able to do those things. So whenever you can capitalize on that, I think it’s inherently part of child growth and development, even at very young ages all the way up, so there’s never an opportunity to miss it. I think the key to that is reinforcing and endorsing things that there is they already have interest in, they’re already good at and highlighting that for them and sort of building on that with other things. What do you think?

Dr. Sarah (03:37):

I agree. I mean, we won’t get the answer from the person that wrote the DM. Maybe you can tell us what you mean by specifically chores in terms of semantics, right? Because people talk about chores. Everyone kind of uses that word, but we kind of have different meanings for it. Or we might be talking about something different, but not calling it a chore. So I think of my own chores. I pack the lunches every night before I go to bed for the next day. That’s my chore, right? My husband is not responsible for that. I am. He is his chore. My husband’s chore is he takes the garbage out on garbage nights. I don’t even think about garbage. He’s responsible for that. That’s his chore. We don’t really call them chores though. We call them. They’re things we own. So just not to get in the weeds on semantics, but how do you talk to your kids about it? And sometimes there are things that your kids just own. I have repeatedly explained to my kids and repeatedly because that might be me to talk about that we’re going to have to really repeat this.

Dr. Emily (04:47):

Reinforce, yeah.

Dr. Sarah (04:48):

And maybe have to remind and remind and remind a million times before it becomes a habit. But it is now my kids’ responsibility when they get home from school to take their lunchboxes out of their backpacks and just put it in the kitchen. I don’t care. They don’t have to dump in any whatever, but because we’ve had some pretty nasty lunchboxes, if they Monday morning I open up the backpacks and they’ve been sitting in there since Friday, like blah. So now that’s their job and that’s technically a chore, but it’s also just something they have to do.

Dr. Emily (05:23):

Well, I think you’re touching upon something super important though, which is a chore. Something you do a hundred percent independently or is a chore something? Could a chore also be something you’ve been prompted about? You’re reminded about that’s how you teach a chore. So I think that that’s the other piece of this that’s really important, which is like you’re not like, Hey kids, from now on, you’re bringing your lunchboxes into the kitchen. When you get home from school and your job is done, and they are going to remember that every day.

Dr. Sarah (05:52):

It’s still not perfect. I’m constantly reminding them and still I don’t do it. I think therein lies the distinction. I know I will be reminding and prompting and making sure that chore gets accomplished. That’s my job. Their job is to do it. And so I have accepted that my job is to remind them, but I’m not going to get the lunches out of the backpacks anymore.

Dr. Emily (06:20):

And what you’re talking about is what’s developmentally appropriate. You might have started with going to their backpacks with them, and I’m just trying to, like…

Dr. Sarah (06:30):

I still do that, but I’m not taking, my hand, I refused to touch the lunchbox.

Dr. Emily (06:37):

But I actually think that’s really important. I think colloquially, I think what a lot of listeners might experience is my kids don’t do chores because they’re not doing them a hundred percent independently. And the truth is the developing of that skill takes, like you said, insane amounts of repetition. It might mean buddying, it might mean you do it with ’em or my kids are older. And finally, my husband actually was a great contribution. He gave them a visual chart, not for a rewards.

Dr. Sarah (07:10):

No, it’s just like a checklist or reminder.

Dr. Emily (07:11):

Exactly. It’s literally actually a dry erase checklist because the checking feels relevant and good.

(07:19):

But again, it’s like I think chores are really important as you can see how we’re describing of creating executive functionings. How do you plan things, how do you track things? How do you learn how to do a new skill? And so those are really important qualities. So if I had say yes or no chores, I’d say sure, hard and fast. But I do think the way you do it is really important. That’s why I’m really emphasizing the co-doing it repeating, reminding that might not feel like your kid is doing. It, might feel like you’re doing it and that is actually developmentally appropriate. So I don’t want listeners to be like, but my kid isn’t doing it all on their own or they’re not making as much progress as I would like.

Dr. Sarah (08:00):

Right. I’ll add to that because we’re talking about developmental appropriateness, which always tends to prompt the question, but But at what age is it appropriate to expect them? And here’s the thing that’s kind of tricky. If your kid is three and you start to introduce this idea, you’re going to have to do a ton of scaffolding. If your kid is five and you introduce this idea, you’re going to have to do a ton of scaffolding, but they’ll get there faster. If your kid is 13 and you have yet to introduce a concept of you need to do these chores now, you’re going to have to do a ton of scaffolding. They’ll likely get there faster. If they’re 13, they might get there slower because they’re probably way more resistant to you telling them what to do. But that’s more about preteen, tween, teen, developmental stuff. But again, if we want to build a habit, we have to leave room for learning. And learning requires developmentally appropriate expectations, scaffolding and just practice.

Dr. Emily (09:06):

And I think the other, exactly your point, what I love about maybe a tip for a parent who wants to start doing chores or something is to really tag it onto a routine that already happens. What I love about your example, and I do the same in my house, is everybody’s already coming home from school and maybe putting their backpacks in the mudroom or whatever. If you can tag onto that, okay, hey guys, we’re going to take your lunchboxes out and go upstairs. That’s a great way to start a new thing and new chore with something that’s already happening in your routine. The chores are a part of routines, and so the more we can emphasize like, oh, this is just a part of our new routine. When we come from school, we take off our shoes. When we come home from school, we empty our lunchboxes, we bring our homework upstairs, we bring our homework into the study area. Routines are a really foundational part of this. So the more that you can have chores attached to family routines or create family routines that are sort of married to those coupled with some of those chores, I think you’ll have more success in getting those off the ground.

Dr. Sarah (10:11):

Yes, I agree. One thing that we’ve been introducing, and again, my kids are seven and five and I really never, I’ve always asked them to help out around the house as part of the family team, but I’ve never had a set list of things they are responsible for. It’s usually like, Hey, will you please put all these clothes in the hamper because it’s kind of messy today. I just whatever. But as my kids are getting older and our routines are getting a little bit more solidified and their ability to help is getting more reliable, to extend your point about building it into an existing routine at night, at dinnertime, when I’m in the kitchen, we can’t talk about kids’ chores without talking about the load of parenthood and parent told chores. But in my family, I own dinnertime typically. I mean, usually when I’m home for dinner, I cook it and that’s my task. I have been asking my kids to start setting the table and they switch off. One of them is in charge of setting the table and one of them is in charge of clearing the table and one of them is in charge of wiping it down. They just really like the spray bottle, and that’s usually the most desirable thing, and they fight over who gets to spray the table and wipe it off, but they can’t both do it because that would cause just absolutely World War III.

(11:38):

So we’ve developed a bit of a form, more semi formalized. Sure. Routine around getting ready for dinner time. So they switch off who sets the table? Whoever sets the table, the other one is going to clear the table. And then I forget how we’re doing the spray bottles, but I’ll get back to you on that one.

Dr. Emily (12:00):

I know, but I think what you’re saying is something, actually another tip number two, something else really important is it’s happening often enough. You’re practicing it a lot. Yes, right. You’re practicing, you’re choosing something that happens with enough frequency that you can practice it a lot. And actually a funny anecdote is that I’m a working parent, I’m a psychologist. I work, and one thing that I think was really surprising to me and might sort of be resonate with other two parent working families is if you have childcare in your home, it actually reduces the amount of natural opportunities for chores. And I think that that was a really big revelation for me. Oh, I have to be more intentional about this. I have a lovely childcare provider who’s really trying to help me out all the time in my house, but oh crap, my kids are never cleaning the tape, clearing their dish, which is a fundamental value for me. So I think looking at your family system, looking for opportunities, but you also might have to build them in more. Sometimes they might be more organic and sometimes you have to build them in more, and sometimes you have to be really patient because it’s faster for you to do it yourself. That’s one of those putting your kids’ shoes on. So just being intentional about building out those skills.

Dr. Sarah (13:18):

Yeah. Another thought that’s coming up, again, literally my husband and I have been talking about this a lot lately. We’ve been talking about do we want to give them a chore chart personally, just this is my own personal opinion about chores and because I do think that I want it to feel as kind of what you were saying earlier, Emily, you’re not going to get a reward for every chore you do in my family. I want you to feel like this is part of being part of our family team is we all pitch in and do these things. And there are some things that I think are big stretches to ask my kids to do, and I think I could actually get more traction if I rewarded them. So I’m not opposed to rewarding kids for doing chores, but I want to sort of distinguish. So one of thought I had, because I’m like, how do I do this? I’m not playing around with this. Maybe I’ll report back in a couple months on how it’s going, but I was thinking about having sort a very small three to four max rotating list of family chores that my kids participate in that are just part of being on the team that just expected. And then having a bonus list of things they can do if they’re bored, if they’re whining, if they want to get something and earn something that they can go look at the bonus list and pick out a chore and each chore will have a dollar amount next to it and they can earn some money to do those chores as a redirect. When they come to me and they’re like, oh, can I put the TV on? Like, no. And they’re like, but I’m bored. I don’t have anything to do. I’m like, Ooh, maybe you want to earn some money and go look at the bonus list. Or when they’re like, oh, I want to buy this thing at CBS, and I’m like, Hey, let’s go home and check out the bonus list and maybe you can earn some money to come back and buy this. I’m just trying to think of ways to just get them to leave me alone.

Dr. Emily (15:28):

I can tell you. Yeah, I mean listen, frankly, I can tell you because I’ve lived this, I do basically have that. It’s not as beautifully laid out and formalized as what you just articulated, but I do have in my mind, which I think would be really helpful to your point, to maybe be more clear, transparent with my children.

Dr. Sarah (15:46):

I want to make a little clip art laminated thing.

Dr. Emily (15:50):

That’s lovely. I will never get to that. I’m going to be totally, it won’t all of you. It won. But in my mind, and because we’ve talked about it enough over time, I think my kids know there are things that I’m perfectly happy to pay for them for, and they are chores, but they are paid. So for example, picking up the nuts that fall off my tree in the backyard is an optional. You can get paid for that. You get paid. We have done when they were little, we paid them by the bucket when they were as they get bigger. But those are things I’m like, oh, you want to earn some extra money? Great. And my kids will now come to me and say, mom, how can I earn some extra money around here? And I’m like, great. You can do X, Y, and z. I have a list of contract, but I do have a bunch of those are just not setting and clearing the table and making your bed and making sure that your room is tidy. Those are things that are just part of family routines is sort of how I like to call it.

(16:50):

I’m not opposed actually to working towards getting an allowance for that because I do think we should do a whole episode on allowance. It gets really tricky if you don’t do your chore. It’s like some families believe in just giving allowance. Some people it just gets very mucky and it’s hard to administer appropriately. So I think you have to be really intentional and have a plan and we can certainly talk about that or maybe somebody can help me with that on a different episode. But I like your idea of, and I implement this in my own life and I recommend this as there are things that are just household team members to your terminology. And then there are things that I’m really happy. I don’t think people should work for free. That’s okay. Even kids.

Dr. Sarah (17:32):

Yeah. And I think what we’re really coming to over and over is there isn’t a right way to do chores or to pay or not pay your kid. It doesn’t really matter. Go ahead and figure it out. Play with it. There isn’t a right chore, wrong chore, but it’s also okay to do both. And I think some parents don’t really maybe need to hear that permission. I think there’s a fear like, well, oh, I’m either, we don’t pay for chores because it will reduce intrinsic motivation or it will make it so that we’re implying that you have to be paid for working on the things that are part of the family labor. But then on the other hand, I don’t want parents to think that they’re not allowed to reward, they’re not allowed to pay their kids for tasks. You could do both. I’m doing both.

Dr. Emily (18:28):

A hundred percent.

Dr. Sarah (18:30):

And I think that’s more reality based.

Dr. Emily (18:32):

I also think, I always say this to my kids all the time, I reserve the right to change the system. I think to your point, giving it a try and if it’s working well, that’s okay, but if it’s not, you can also say, I’m not going to pay for that. Let’s revise this and let’s all sit down and I do think that you should try things. That’s the end. Yes, try things, try things out and be able change them.

Dr. Sarah (18:56):

Be willing to have certain things fall into certain categories of rules and certain things fall into other categories of rules. I think that’s totally legit. Another thing I will say that’s very important though is whatever your plan is, visual cues for kids, even if they can read.

Dr. Emily (19:13):

Or pictorials.

Dr. Sarah (19:16):

A written word list is a visual cue, but also pictures. It’s just concretize it.

Dr. Emily (19:24):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (19:24):

Concretize the expectations. Put it somewhere where everyone can see it. If you can collaborate on the construction of it even better, like the deciding what goes on there even better, it’s totally okay to ask your kids what chores would you be most excited to do? And let’s add that to Melissa. You don’t have to be the one that decides love it. Your interest might just be that they learn to do chores, what the chores are. It could be something that they pick. They’re going to be more likely to do something that they pick. You can also pick it. It doesn’t matter. Again, moral of this entire episode is it doesn’t matter. Try it out. Let us know what you try, let us know how it goes. God bless you. Good luck. Good luck.

Dr. Emily (20:14):

I do think your point, I love the way you’re ending this though. I think having a little levity, and I think chores can be really serious. You should do your chores and I think having a little bit of give it a try. Try it, make it fun. Make it part of your routine. Don’t make it so punitive is a nice way to end this episode, right?

Dr. Sarah (20:32):

Nobody wants to be, because then the problem is, if it becomes this really serious thing, what ends up happening is you become the nag and it sucks. Nobody wants to be the parenting chore nag constantly, and you feel you get locked into it because you feel like you can’t let go. This is a hill I have to die on now. Don’t do that to yourself. Please don’t do that to yourself. Try it. Make it light, make it fun, make it flexible. Your kids will learn what you’re trying to get them to learn, and that’s ultimately the bigger goal. I think we can all agree.

Dr. Emily (21:08):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (21:08):

Alright, report back. I’ll report back.

Dr. Emily (21:11):

Make your bed.

Dr. Sarah (21:13):

See you soon.

(21:15):Thank you so much for listening. As you can hear, parenting is not one size fits all. It’s nuanced and it’s complicated. So I really hope that this series where we’re answering your questions really helps you to cut through some of the noise and find out what works best for you and your unique child. If you have a burning parenting question, something you’re struggling to navigate or a topic you really want us to shed light on or share research about, we want to know, go to drsarahbren.com/question to send in anything that you want, Rebecca, Emily, and me to answer in Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions. That’s drsarahbren.com/question. And check back for a brand new securely attached next Tuesday. And until then, don’t be a stranger.