Chores prepare kids for life
Want successful kids? Give them chores.
If you were to walk into a conventional preschool or kindergarten classroom today, there’s a good chance you’d witness one of a few common sights:
An adult preparing a snack for the students
The teacher’s assistant (or a volunteer parent) cleaning up a spill
The janitor removing something sticky from the floor
Meanwhile, the children are playing at cooking and cleaning in a pretend kitchen!
But in Montessori classrooms, it’s not uncommon to find the children completing these tasks.
While this is a departure from conventional classroom activities (where kids are expected to make messes and adults are expected to clean them up), the reality is that children love to participate in practical life.
And what’s more practical than chores?
Tasks like cooking, washing dishes, and sweeping the floor are more than just a way to help around the house or at school. They’re also a means of developing essential life skills.
Here’s why this matters so much:
Why Montessori emphasizes chores
The Montessori curriculum doesn’t encourage cooking and cleaning for the sake of cooking and cleaning (though both are important). Rather, it emphasizes practical life skills, which lead to increased independence and confidence in children.
In fact, it’s never too early to start involving your kids in real-world activities. With the right tools, even babies can help around the house! This is important because…
simple chores (e.g., putting away toys and wiping down surfaces) help build motor skills and a sense of order.
chores teach young children about responsibility and help them understand the importance of contributing to their environment.
even small tasks foster a sense of independence and pride in their completed work.
Remember, putting laundry in the hamper may be part of your daily grind, but to your toddler, it’s a new opportunity.
They desperately want to be involved in the day-to-day aspects of managing a life — and the developmental benefits are innumerable.
Sequencing and time management
Chores teach children the proper sequencing of tasks. This might mean clearing the table before wiping it down or putting their toys away before going to sleep.
Tasks like these help kids understand logical relationships and learn to follow a series of steps. The order of operations in the kitchen may be obvious to us as adults, but to a toddler, preparing a snack and cleaning it up feels like bringing order to the universe.
By their elementary years, chores also teach children about time management. You can even set time limits for certain tasks (e.g., 15 minutes to tidy up the playroom). This helps your kid develop a sense of efficiency and a knack for scheduling — both important aspects of time management.
Problem-solving
Chores often involve decision-making, which is a necessary part of problem-solving.
For instance, your child might need to brainstorm how to clean up a sticky mess or how to fold laundry of various sizes and materials.
These mini-challenges help develop resourcefulness, creative thinking, and confidence, all of which will benefit your kid later in life. After all, the way they learn to handle small tasks will one day translate to their management of bigger issues.
Communication
Working as a family to complete chores encourages healthy communication among everyone. You might discuss who is responsible for what, how to collaborate, and when tasks need to be finished.
You can also ask your older children and teens to lead specific chores, teaching them how to direct or guide others in certain tasks. (In other words, this hones their leadership skills, too!)
One of our favorite ways to practice healthy communication is to hold family meetings to assign chores, allowing our children to express their preferences, voice ideas, and learn how to compromise on shared responsibilities.
Planning
Tasks like meal planning, grocery shopping, and organizing spaces teach kids how to plan ahead.
Older children and teens are ready to take ownership of such responsibilities, including planning family outings and preparing meals in advance.
These chores help them develop their logistical skills, which will come in handy when they enter the workforce and/or decide to raise their own families.
Responsibility
As mentioned above, chores help children understand the importance of remaining accountable and following through on their commitments.
For example, a child who is asked to feed the family pet every morning learns the importance of being consistent and dependable. They know the dog or cat isn’t going to feed itself, so this chore has real-life consequences if ignored or forgotten.
We don’t always feel like checking things off our to-do lists — that’s part of life. But by instilling a healthy sense of responsibility in our kids, they learn to persevere when the going gets tough (or boring).
Attention to detail
Completing chores requires paying attention to the little things: the order of the silverware, the organization of the laundry, the accuracy of the shopping list, etc.
These tiny details teach children to take pride in their work and help them understand the importance of being thorough. After all, if they don’t have all the necessary ingredients to make dinner, they have to go back to the store… and that’s pretty frustrating!
So, yes — Montessori children spend a significant portion of their time cleaning, cooking, and generally participating in real life. But they don’t begrudge it.
When given the opportunity, kids naturally choose real, practical, confidence-boosting work over traditional play.
Above all, practical work in Montessori is about instilling independence and building self-esteem. In the Montessori approach, school is not a preparation for life, it is life, at the child’s level. Whether slicing an apple, watering a plant, or wiping up a spill, the child is practicing—here, now, every day—the real skills he or she needs to be good, successful, and happy always.
☀️ This week’s bright spots:
If you have one minute… Get a list of developmentally appropriate chores for every age group.
If you have five minutes… Chores aren’t “play” to a child, they’re real work — and that’s exactly why they should do them.
If you have ten minutes… Even toddlers are capable of doing chores (and receive huge benefits from doing so!).