From the time our crew were old enough to be in a backpack carrier, there have been chores around here. By the time they could walk, they were helping drag empty buckets back to the feed shed, putting up fencing, and scrubbing water buckets. So we talk about doing chores a lot here, and you’ll find a lot of pictures of chores and chore time (or choring as we call it when we’re making up our own verbs) on our Facebook and Instagram accounts. And folks are often impressed by how much “real work” our kiddos do.

Well, we’re super proud of them–this place just doesn’t run as smoothly when they’re not around!–but it’s not always as photogenic as Facebook can make it look.

We have bad days. We have crabby days.

We have yelling at each other days. We have crying days. We have hard-headed, not-gonna-do-it, rebellion days. We have I CAN’T DO IT days.

And how we handle those days is going to set the tone for all the other days. Here’s a few tips and examples of how to handle the hard days.

1. Use Natural Consequences

We don’t like to bring unrelated issues into chore time if we can help it, so we don’t restrict Legos,or screen time, or sleep overs, to resolve chore issues if we don’t have to. Honestly, if the munchkins are being asked to participate in real, meaningful work (which is one of my pet-peeves about “chores” for kids) the consequences tend to flow naturally from the work, without being imposed by the parents.

We have a handful of regular morning and afternoon chores broke out on a chalkboard for the week. It is different daily, but the weekly schedule is pretty consistent. Every morning and afternoon the kiddos can check the board to see what their chore is for the time period. I’ll share about the system some other time, but the point is that sometimes you have the same chore morning and afternoon–which means if you shirked on your chores in the morning, you’re dealing with the fall out in the afternoon. If you have eggs and skipped gathering in the AM, you’ll have twice as many to wash that afternoon. If you only filled the water bucket half way in the AM because you got up late, you’ll have twice as much filling time in the PM (and it will be 20-30 degrees hotter out there!). It’s a not-so-gentle spiral of natural consequences that is completely self-imposed and I don’t have to do anything as a parent other than watch it play out.

Non-farm chores? If you don’t do your laundry chores, you don’t have your favorite clothes clean. If you don’t clean up your toys, they get vacuumed or picked up for trash. We don’t replace toys that are lost or broken due to neglect. Ever. We offer reminders of things we think are important, but with consistency these become house rules and all I say is I’m getting ready to vacuum and everyone jumps up to check their stuff.

This also works great for teaching diligence. We know how long a chore should take and schedule other activities accordingly. If you dawdle, it’s your time that’s wasting. Everyone else gets screen time, but you wasted yours wandering around picking daisies and catching grasshoppers. {shrug} If you want to go to a birthday party, you have to have your room clean and your chores done by 1 pm so we can leave–if you’re not diligent you’ll miss out. Just make sure you’re setting reasonable goals and telling them up front so they know what to expect.

Natural consequences are inherently fair, so even on the hardest days you won’t lose the lesson in the enforcement of a “punishment”.

2. Be Committed

Parenting is not for the faint-of-heart. When one of the crew is having a meltdown over carrying water buckets because they’re getting all wet, or walking the dogs when it’s 103 degrees, or hauling multiple baskets of laundry up and down the stairs…I would often love to say Enough! I’ll do it!! just to end the drama. But I owe them more than that. It’s my job to teach them better than that. My job isn’t to do it for them, it’s to teach them to do it for themselves. To teach them I can do it, I can survive it, I can handle it, I can figure it out.

Chores are an important part of character building and life skill building. Diligence. Perseverance. Responsibility. Compassion. Commitment. Logic and problem solving. Physical exercise and muscle growth. Confidence. Self-assurance. Knowledge. Self-sufficiency. Even teamwork. So when you assign your munchkin a job–it’s essential that you’re ready to see it through–to the bitter, tear-streaked, paint-splattered, water-soaked, mud-drenched, scraped-up, bug-bitten, grass-stained, sweaty end. If you said walk the dog around the block, and they only went to the end of the road because it’s hot, well, you have to send them back out there to do it the way they were told. It’s going to take twice and long, be twice as hot, as if they had just done it correctly the first time. Natural consequences. Plus, it’s about the dog’s well-being, so they’re learning compassion, commitment, and responsibility to lesser creatures.

If you’re not that committed, don’t assign it to them, just do it with them. 

3. Be Calm

It’s hard, but it’s so important to remember that your child having a meltdown doesn’t have to be a meltdown on your part. (Oh, I struggle with this!) You need to be steady and committed to the goal (completing the job), and let the natural consequences teach the lesson. No lecturing. No yelling. No correcting. Let them figure it out, work it out, scream it out (yes, sometimes we have this too), and get it done.

[bctt tweet=”What to do when chores are HARD–natural consequences and a calm demeanor…” username=”va_grown”]

Be strong. Be firm. Imagine that you’re a wall that simply can not be moved. The job must be done. The end. (And if you’re not that committed to the outcome, again, don’t assign the job.) It can seem a lifetime in the middle, but your lack of drama will allow the natural consequences to drive home the lesson much stronger. My children often hear me say I’m sorry it turned out like that for you when they’re in the middle of a fit, because most of their problem is based on their own choices and actions.

I also don’t waste time any more in the I CAN’T vs Yes You Can battle. They say I CAN’T and I simply say You Have To. The animals have to be fed. They have to have water. Laundry has to be done. The dishwasher has to be emptied before I make dinner. {shrug} You have to do it. Welcome to real life. You don’t just get to quit because it’s hard.

It’s so important to be careful what you assign–eventually any chore will become a battle, choose your battles wisely.

4. Be Available

Chores need supervision, and supervision is a verb when it comes to parenting. You can’t hold them accountable if you don’t know what they’re doing. Mr. Fix-It and I do all the animal chores every weekend. Partly to do our own share, and partly because there’s a constant accountability check behind the munchkins. I will know if the water buckets haven’t been washed or the nesting boxes haven’t been filled because I’ll be going out there regularly too. I’ll also know if something is broken, causing undue stress on the work load, or could be changed to make everything easier. We try to empower the crew to give us suggestions and point out problem areas, but sometimes it needs a more experienced eye.

Chores are NEVER about making life hard for anyone, they are simply about making life work. They are never about punishment, or specifically intended to teach any negative life lessons–again, those come naturally through assigning meaningful work. So, while we might occasionally be pushing them outside their comfort zone for growth reasons, we’re always on the look out for someone that needs help, needs a break, or needs more training to accomplish the goal. Some children take to challenge better than others. You can see from these pictures that Speedracer was having a challenging day–it was HOT, he was sweaty and dirty and itchy, and he was hauling buckets because he cut corners in the morning and didn’t tell me we needed a repair (which I could have picked up on the way home). When he stopped screaming and crying and flat out refusing to do it and asked calmly, I went out there and helped him dump them over the fence because he couldn’t get them up that high if the bucket was more than a few inches full and he was literally on track to be there all night.

I had to stay calm and committed while he was rebelling against the work itself, but once he submitted to the job and accepted the lesson learned from shirking in the morning, I was ready to help. The job had turned into something a little beyond what was fair to expect him to do by himself.

Monitor their need for accountability and assistance–you don’t have to change the goal or expectation to offer a helping hand in reaching it. 

I think it’s so important to raise the bar on expectations for our kiddos. Fighting through adversity always makes stronger character, and for little people, chores can be a big deal! And there is nothing more redeeming to a tough afternoon than the sniff, hug, and sorry momma, that comes from someone having worked through their own little process by the time they finish their job. And choring is some of our favorite family time as well!

I’d love to hear some of your strategies for dealing with temper tantrums during chore time. Our kiddos are all very strong-willed (yes, really, all three of them!) so things like “reasoning with them” and “redirecting them” are not usually very successful. I find a calm and compassionate version of ignoring the tantrum most effective–with certain limits. We don’t allow any hitting, throwing, unacceptable language, etc. But if you want to scream and cry in frustration the whole time you’re working, well, sorry neighbors, but we’re learning important life lessons here. {smile}

A few other great Kids and Chores posts from Walking in High Cotton…

Kids and Chores: What ARE Chores?

Kids and Chores…5 Reasons Why We Don’t Give Allowance for Chores

6 Tips for Raising Hard Workers

5 Reasons Why We Set High Standards

Raising Children That are Diligent

The Family That Works Together