On Household Chores

[danieldwilliam]

My son, the Captain, recently turned 11.

I think he's ready to do some chores around the house. He's a reasonably sensible and trustworthy eleven year old.

My own experience of turning eleven and picking up some jobs around the house is, I think, not an ideal guide to how this should be done. My mum was a single parent to 4 kids, I'm the eldest. Things were fraught and a not necessarly well thought through.

So what are some reasonable jobs around the house for an eleven year old?

Comments

[alithea]

When I was that age, my household chore was cleaning the glass panels in the doors... But then we had a dog who used to smear snot all over them 😂

But things like drying up and hoovering seem quite reasonable to me.

[danieldwilliam]

I'm leaning towards hoovering as that's pretty low risk.

[alithea]

Probably a good plan. Having actually thought about it, I don't trust Kev with drying up because he leaves things all smeared, and of course there is always the danger of dropping your favourite mug or whatever, so probably not the best task 😆

[danieldwilliam]

We tend not to dry up but leave things to dry and then put them away later. The cupboards are up high.

And we often don't wash up immediately after dinner.

And the risk of him dropping things.

I'm pretty sure I was doing the washing up and drying up at eleven ish but we had a more regimented production line with six of us in the household, rather than 3.

[alithea]

Yes, I avoid drying up by leaving things to air where possible too, I just don't like Kev doing it instead!

I was doing drying up at that age too probably, but similarly, washing up happened as soon as dinner was finished and was something of a production line.