Chores by age: what our three can actually do, and what I stopped expecting
Someone in a Facebook group asked last week what chores a seven-year-old should be doing, and the replies went from "nothing, let them be kids" to a list that would've had my seven-year-old running the house. So here's ours. Three girls, one at secondary, two at primary, and about four years of getting it wrong first.
If you just want the list, there's a table further down. If you want to know why half the lists online don't survive contact with a real Tuesday, keep reading.
The mistake I made first
I googled "age appropriate chores", printed a list, stuck it on the fridge. It said a six-year-old can make their bed, set the table, sort laundry, water plants, feed the pet and wipe the table. All true, technically. What it didn't say is that a six-year-old can do one of those, on a good day, if you're stood there, and the bed will look like something's died in it.
The list wasn't wrong about what they can do. It was wrong about what you can reasonably expect to just happen. Those are different things, and every chores-by-age list I've seen blurs them.
So the way I think about it now is: at each age there's a small set of jobs they can own properly, with no help and no reminding beyond a nudge. Everything else is a "with you" job. Start with the owned ones. Add the others slowly. Don't put fourteen things on a laminated chart. (I did. It's in the drawer under the microwave. I've mentioned it before.)
4 to 6: it's about the habit, not the house
At this age nothing they do saves you any time. Zero. It usually takes longer. That's fine, that's not what it's for. You're teaching them that everybody in the house does stuff, and that when you're done with something you put it back.
Jobs they can own: put their own toys away at the end of the day, put dirty clothes in the basket, take their plate to the side after tea, put shoes on the rack when they come in.
Jobs to do together: feeding the dog (Noodles would be twice the size if this were unsupervised), watering plants, wiping the table, helping put shopping away, matching socks.
Stop expecting: a bed that looks made. A tidy room that stays tidy for more than an hour. Any of it happening without you saying so.
One thing that helped more than I expected: photos. Betsy would say she'd tidied her toys and she'd have moved them from the floor to the bed. When she started taking a picture of the finished job to show me, it changed what "done" meant in her head. You can do that with your phone. We do it in the app because it goes straight to me and she gets her points the moment I tap approve, but the photo's the bit that matters.
7 to 9: the first real jobs
This is where it gets useful. They can actually take a job off your plate, if it's the right job and it's the same job every time. What doesn't work is a rotating list of different things. They need to know that Tuesday is bins and every night is plate-to-the-dishwasher, not "help out a bit".
Jobs they can own: make their bed (loosely defined), unload the cutlery from the dishwasher, set the table, put their own washing away, feed the pet, pack their school bag the night before, bring the bins in, keep their bedroom floor clear enough to walk across.
Jobs to do together: hoovering their room, changing their bed, wiping the bathroom sink, simple cooking like buttering toast or stirring something.
Stop expecting: them to notice something needs doing. They won't. Not because they're lazy, they just genuinely don't see the mess. If it isn't a named, repeating job, it doesn't exist.
Addy is the one who found me in the garden and asked me to add "clean your bedroom" as a quest because she needed the points for a game. That's the age where points start to really work. Not money, points. Things the points buy. Picking the film on Friday, half an hour extra on the Switch. Cheap for me, a big deal to her.
10 to 12: they can run a room
By ten they can do most of what an adult does in their own space, they just don't want to. So the jobs get bigger and the number of reminders has to go down, otherwise you're nagging a ten-year-old about the same three things forever and everyone's miserable.
Jobs they can own: their whole bedroom, including hoovering and changing the bed. Emptying and loading the dishwasher. Putting a wash on (with a bit of training on what goes with what). Walking the dog, if you've got one and the route's safe. Making their own packed lunch. Taking the bins out. Basic cooking, beans on toast, pasta, scrambled eggs.
Jobs to do together: a proper clean of the bathroom, cooking a whole meal, anything with a mower.
Stop expecting: them to want to. That ship has sailed. What you can expect is for it to get done, and the trick at this age is having the reminder come from somewhere that isn't you. Isla will argue with me about anything for twenty minutes. She will not argue with a notification on her phone. I still don't fully understand it, but I'll take it.
13 and up: proper responsibility
Isla's only just started secondary so I'm partly writing this bit from what I've seen with friends' kids, not from experience, and I'll update it when I know better. But the direction's obvious. At this age they can do everything. Cook a family meal once a week. Do their own washing start to finish. Look after younger siblings for an hour. Clean the kitchen after tea, properly, not just their own plate.
The thing that changes is that the chores stop being about the house and start being about them not being useless when they leave. My mam did everything for me and I turned up at uni not knowing how a washing machine worked. I'd rather ours knew.
The table
Here's the short version. "Own" means they can do it alone with one reminder at most. "Together" means you're involved. Everything not on the list for their age, don't expect yet.
| Age | Jobs they can own | Jobs to do together |
|---|---|---|
| 4–6 | Toys away at end of day, dirty clothes in basket, plate to the side, shoes on the rack | Feeding pets, watering plants, wiping the table, putting shopping away, matching socks |
| 7–9 | Make bed, cutlery out of dishwasher, set the table, own washing away, feed pet, pack school bag, bins in, bedroom floor clear | Hoover own room, change own bed, wipe the sink, simple cooking |
| 10–12 | Whole bedroom incl. hoover and bed change, load and empty dishwasher, put a wash on, walk the dog, own packed lunch, bins out, basic cooking | Deep-clean bathroom, cook a full meal, garden jobs |
| 13+ | Own washing start to finish, cook a family meal weekly, clean kitchen after tea, look after siblings briefly, everything above | Bigger household jobs, budgeting the food shop, DIY |
How many chores should a kid have?
Fewer than you think. Ours have two or three daily things and one or two weekly ones, and even that took a while to settle. Every time I've added more than that, the whole thing collapsed within a fortnight and we were back to nothing. Three jobs done every day beats twelve jobs done for nine days.
If you're using TaskAdoodles, the same rule applies. The families who set up thirty tasks per kid on day one are the ones who stop using it. Set up three. Make them repeat. Add one more when those three are boring.
Should they get paid for chores?
Everyone's got an opinion on this, so here's ours: the basics are free. Your room, your plate, your bag. That's just living here. Anything beyond that earns points, and points buy things. Not always money. Screen time, choosing tea, a later bedtime on a Friday. You can put a cash value on rewards if you want, we mostly don't.
The reason it's points and not money for us is that money runs out and I run out of change. Points I can just... make more of. And honestly the kids care more about levelling up their avatar than about a pound coin.
What actually makes it stick
Not the list. The list is the easy bit. What makes it stick is:
Same jobs, same days. Kids don't do "help out". They do "empty the dishwasher, every night, before tea".
The reminder isn't you. A chart, an alarm, an app, whatever. Once you're the reminder, you're the nag, and the job becomes about you and them rather than about the job.
Proof. A photo, or you going up and looking. "Yeah I did it" is worth nothing, they know it, you know it.
Something at the end of it. Points, a sticker, a tenner at the end of the month, doesn't matter. Something that's theirs because they did it.
That's it. That's what four years and a laminated chart taught me. Start smaller than feels sensible, keep it the same every day, and get yourself out of the reminding business as fast as you can.
If you want to try it with the app, it's free for 14 days and you can set the whole lot up in about ten minutes. Recurring quests, photo proof, points, rewards. Cancel whenever. And if you've got a chore on your list I've missed, or you think I'm mad about the seven-year-olds, tell me. I'll add it.