Archives for January 2025

Are you tired of nagging or yelling at your teens to do their chores?

Do they often grumble or come up with excuses to avoid helping with housework?

Maybe you have to deal with teenage attitude or a tantrum whenever you want your teenagers to get involved.

After a long day of school, extracurricular activities, and homework, the last thing any teenager wants to do is vacuum the floor or fold the laundry. So it’s no surprise that many parents are dealing with teens who don’t want to help out at home.

You don’t have to make your teens love chores for them to step up. But you can show them the importance of participating and encourage them to take responsibility for their assigned tasks.

While this might not be easy, getting them involved in housework is important.

It teaches them valuable skills for self-sufficiency and independence when they leave home. Plus, the research suggests that giving your teens chores can help them grow up to be happier and more successful.

To help you out, I’ll share some of the most effective strategies for getting your teenagers to do their chores.

Let’s dive in!

(If you have trouble getting your teens to listen to you, download the free quick action guide below.)

1. Make it a family activity

When housework is divided fairly among all family members, helping out becomes part of the culture at home.

Getting everyone involved, including your teen’s younger siblings, is a good idea. While younger kids might not be able to do the same tasks as your teens, they can still help with simpler chores like setting or clearing the table.

The key is getting everyone to contribute.

If you’d like, you can also set aside one or two hours a week for the entire family to work on cleaning and maintaining the house together.

This can make chores feel more like a family activity instead of something your teenagers have to do.

2. Set clear expectations

Part of establishing good communication with your teens involves informing them of your expectations. You can set and communicate expectations clearly to help your teens understand their roles and tasks at home.

To do this, you can sit down as a family to create a weekly chore schedule.

This schedule will map out specific tasks for each family member. For instance, your teen might be assigned to do the laundry on Thursdays and help with the dishes every other weekday night.

This allows your teenagers to build a sense of accountability for their assigned tasks. It also encourages them to get into the habit of helping out at home.

You can also discuss the consequences of missed or overlooked chores. For example, your teen might be assigned an extra task on top of the missed chore.

3. Offer flexibility

One great way to get your teens involved is to offer more flexibility about how they do their chores. This can help your teens feel more in control, which might reduce resistance.

For example, you can let your teenagers decide when they want to do their chores.

While you might prefer having the clothes folded first thing in the morning, your teens might prefer to do it in the evening after dinner.

Flexibility can also apply to the type of chores they’re assigned. You may want to rotate tasks between your teenagers so they don’t get bored with the routine.

You can also let them swap tasks when they need to.

For example, your teenager might be responsible for doing the dishes on Tuesday nights. But let’s say he or she has an event on a coming Tuesday. In this case, your teen can exchange the task with another family member and do the dishes on a different day of the week.

4. Gamify the process

Occasionally, you can try “gamifying” certain chores.

Gamification is a concept where you utilize common elements associated with games. Examples include collecting points, leveling up, or trying to one-up your opponents. You then incorporate them into non-gaming activities.

One way to do this is by creating a reward system. For each chore completed, your teen will gain points. They can then redeem their collected points for various rewards, such as a later curfew or a new pair of shoes.

I recommend that you don’t overdo it though, because you want your teens to still get the message that it’s important for every family member to contribute through chores.

You don’t want your teens to think they’re doing you a favor by completing their chores, which is why they’re able to gain points and get rewards.

You can also turn chores into family challenges.

For example, folding the laundry might feel like a mundane task. But you can divide the family into two teams, split the pile of laundry, and see which team can fold their share the fastest and neatest.

This simple twist turns a routine chore into a lively game. Adding a small reward for the winning team can make it even more exciting and motivate everyone to pitch in with a smile!

5. Be a role model

Research shows that who teenagers choose to look up to can affect their physical and mental health in the long run. Based on the findings, family members have the strongest impact as role models.

As parents, we can be positive role models for our teens in various aspects of life. This includes how we handle household responsibilities. Taking the initiative with chores and managing tasks positively can inspire teens to adopt similar habits.

Of course, juggling work, family, and household responsibilities is tiring. And it’s understandably difficult to have a positive attitude toward housework after you’ve had a long day.

But when your teens see you meeting the same standards you expect from them, they’ll be more likely to follow suit.

You can even involve them in the tasks you’re working on. For example, you can prepare meals with your teens, turning a chore into a bonding activity.

6. Acknowledge your teens’ efforts

Appreciating your teens’ contributions helps build a good attitude toward helping out.

A simple “thank you” or “I appreciate you taking out the trash” can go a long way. You can also highlight how their contributions have positively impacted you or the family.

Let’s say your teenage son took the time to make breakfast for the family.

You could tell him how his effort transformed your busy and stressful morning into an enjoyable experience.

If your teenage daughter helped to declutter the living room, you could express to her how much you appreciate relaxing in a clean and organized space.

Acknowledging your teens’ contributions will make them feel seen and appreciated. This also reinforces their positive behavior.

7. Encourage ownership

You can encourage your teens to take total ownership of their chores so they feel more involved and in control. This means allowing them to decide how they want to approach each task.

Let’s say your teenagers are tasked with cleaning their rooms. You can let them decide how to organize and store their belongings — as long as their space becomes neater.

Perhaps you would like them to help prepare a meal for the family. In this case, you can let them pick the recipe to work on or choose the ingredients.

Allowing them to make independent decisions will make your teenagers feel that their opinions are valued and important.

8. Provide guidance and feedback

While it’s a good idea to leave certain decisions to your teens, you might need to provide guidance and advice on how to carry out specific chores.

This might be especially helpful for younger teens who are still learning how to do certain tasks.

You can give your teenagers a few key tips or demonstrate how to do the task correctly to set them up for success and reduce frustration along the way.

Let’s say your teens haven’t learned to cook yet. You can teach them how to tell whether the food is cooked properly, how high or low the heat should be, or what cooking method to use.

You can also walk them through the cooking process and demonstrate the more complicated steps.

Maybe your younger teens aren’t exactly sure how to do the laundry. In this case, you can teach them the basics, like sorting by color. You can also remind them which fabrics can and cannot be machine-washed.

Another way to provide guidance is to teach them to adjust the washing machine and dryer settings based on the type of laundry.

Of course, this doesn’t mean they must follow your step-by-step instructions to a tee. Instead, you can offer guidance if you notice they’re having trouble with certain tasks or haven’t yet learned how to do them.

Think of it as being a supportive coach — you don’t micromanage, but you’re more than happy to step in and offer guidance when they need pointers.

Conclusion

Getting your teenagers to build the habit of helping out at home isn’t a quick or easy process.

It’s tempting to nag your teens to get them to help with chores, but this can backfire and cause a rift in your relationship with them.

Encouragement, good communication, and clear expectations are more likely to work. These approaches help teens understand that doing chores isn’t just a way to avoid punishment or getting yelled at.

Instead, your teens will see chores as opportunities to contribute to the family and learn valuable life skills.

(If you haven’t already downloaded your free quick action guide below, do it right away.)