When should my child start doing chores? When they’re two, is the surprising answer from the experts

I contributed my views for an article in The Press and Journal about the appropriate age for children to support with household tasks. You can view the full article here. An extract below:

Shaddai Tembo is a lecturer in early education and childhood practice at the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI).

He said: “Children should be encouraged to support with activities around the house from a young age, as the research shows that it can be a meaningful way to encourage personal and social responsibility.

“It’s difficult to specify an exact age at which children should be helping with chores, as they develop at different rates.
“However, simple tasks when a child is two years old, such as encouraging them to pick up their toys when finished or scrape their dinner plate, can then give way to helping with laundry, loading the dishwasher, cleaning their room, or light mealtime preparation as they get older.”

Don’t want your child to become spoilt? Responsibility and independence are key

Have today’s children become spoiled? Have they forgotten the value of saving, and delayed gratification?

“The notion that children have become spoiled can mean a lot of different things, and is essentially impossible to prove,” said Mr Tembo.

“In the media, it tends to come with a demonization of parents who give their children what is seen as ‘too much’ attention.

“This then leads to calls for more traditional disciplinarian approaches, that emphasise obedience and create unequal power relations between adult and child.

“If we want to encourage better decision making in children, we should be supporting them to develop their own sense of responsibility and independence.”

You can download a pdf. of the article here.