My 3-year old Matthew is still too young for any serious household chore but I have managed to get him involved in a few chores by giving him little errands.

His favorite errand is helping me with laundry. I let him help me with the laundry with maximum supervision. I let him scoop out powdered laundry soap and very carefully, he loads the soap to the washing machine. And then he helps me load the dirty clothes as the water’s running. He just glee with delight whenever I let him help with the laundry.

The errands he does at my command with practically minimum to NO supervision at all are picking up his toys and putting them in the appropriate location, or placing dirty cups and bottles to the sink, or placing wrappers and other trash to the trash can.

But, a few weeks back, I’ve learned something about giving him errands. I asked him to throw a piece of plastic wrapper to the trash. He placed them on one of his hands. Then I handed him a stack of legos on his other hand and asked him to placed it to the toybox. I basically let him do these errands to absolutely no supervision and then forgot about it.

Then, I was busy straightening things up until he came up to me with dirty hands and said ‘Toys! Mommy! Toys!’ and he was pointing towards the trashcan. I figured that he played with the trash and got him hands dirty. I got so disgusted concentrated on his dirty hands, that I right away directed him to the bathroom to wash his hands, while lecturing him not to play at the trashcan which he has never done before. Right after which he ran back to the trashcan and started digging it. As I was about to call out his attention to make him stop what he was doing, I noticed the plastic wrapper in the toybox, the one I had asked him to throw to the trashcan. I figured that my poor baby got confused that he placed the plastic wrapper at the toybox and threw the legos to the trashcan, and he was trying to tell me that. And now, he was trying to get the legos back. So we dug up the trashcan to pick up the legos, washed our hands and sprayed cleaners on his legos. I learned that it’s still too early for me to give him two or more errands at a time.

I intend on giving him age appropriate household chores and errands as he gets older. Not just him, but all children I am going to have. I think giving kids errands and household chores will teach him responsibility. It will also make them feel involved in the matters of the home. And, obviously, getting them to do houseworks, means just supervision and less housework for me. It just beneficial all together.

However, I know that the problem is actually getting them to do their assigned household chores. I know that as they grow older, the more they will resist and complain and the more they will give excuses not to do their chores. Even Matthew at 3-years-old has already shown signs of resisting errands. He was seated at the floor watching Starwars so seriously on TV. His toys were all scattered in front of him….

ME:  Matthew, pick up your toys!
Matthew (with finger on his lips): Shhh! (I’m) Watching Starwars!
ME: (Stunned!)

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