Anyone can do chores, if they're small enough

3 minute read by Mike Bosland

Starting something new is hard. Household chores are no exception! This is true no matter our age or ability. Kids are super capable, as are their parents. Let me walk you through our early experience.

You know what doesn’t work? Placing your child on a large pile of laundry and saying Go! No matter how much explaining, prodding, or time it just seems too big.

The answer was to break things down into small pieces. Once a task seems small enough, we can tackle it. Finishing feels good and then we can do another. Before we know it, the chore is done!

The Laundry Algorithm

Our laundry plan for young children. Each step uses a single basket and counts as a single chore. Much like Packet Switching.

Gather dirty laundry

If laundry has accumulated this might be a single kid’s room. Tackle several rooms if we’re low. A single basket of laundry is a good size to work with.

• Dirty laundry waits just outside the laundry area.

Sort dirty laundry

Sort 2 or more baskets of laundry into light or dark. Or, skip this step and use a colour catcher!

• Darks and Lights are now in the laundry area.

Load dirty laundry

The washing machine must be empty first. We have a front-load. Simply put the dirty stuff in and ask a parent to add soap and start it up.

• Laundry is washing

Switch clean laundry

The dryer must be empty first. Move it from washer to dryer. This can be challenging depending on the load. The littlest has to pick items that will come free easily in order to liberate bigger pieces. Ask a parent to add a dryer sheet and turn on the dryer (a very important step).

• Laundry is drying

Empty dryer

Also, remove the lint.

• Haul clean laundry to the base of the stairs. Basically somewhere that is unambiguous for clean laundry vs dirty laundry. Don’t want to do the sniff test!

Sort clean laundry

A parent gathers clean baskets of laundry and 1 empty basket per person + 1 for household items. Each child sorts 1 pile into the baskets.

• Each person is responsible for putting away their clean laundry in their drawers. Sorting is by preference of the person. This step is required right after clean laundry sort to liberate baskets for gathering.

Done! Parents support the kids

Parents help at various points to keep things moving along. Especially important if we’ve been eating out or otherwise not had chores. We don’t like our laundry to mould, so sometimes we’ll kick it along to get the drying going. Sometimes we’ve backed up a bit in the pipeline and a parent will help out, such as taking a third pile in a sort operation.

You can reward them with homemade chocolate chip cookies!

• 3/4 cup brown sugar - 150g
• 3/4 cup sugar - 150g
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup butter - 227g
• 1 egg
• 2 1/4 cup flour - 281g
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• chocolate chips to taste

Steps

1. Mix the above into a smooth batter
2. Stir chocolate chips into the batter
3. Spoon onto a cookie sheet, leaving room between cookies
4. Bake 375 degrees F (190c) for 8 to 10 min