School and Chores

Motivating Your Teen to Do Chores

The biggest motivator for teenagers is money. Give your teen a specific amount of money for each chore completed throughout the week. This turns out to be her first job and teaches her that if she does what you expect her to do, you will continue to reward her and give her the chance to make more money. This is why it's good to start with only one or two chores. It gives your teenager a sense of pride knowing that she has exceeded your expectations and has made you proud.

If money is tight or you don't believe that you should have to pay your teen for doing household duties, you can give your teenager another reward that fits into your budget. You can promise her something that she really wants if she does all of her chores for a week or a month. Be careful not to set the rewards too far apart because your teen may lose focus and motivation.

Adjusting Your Teenager's Chore Schedule

Since many teens have busy schedules with extracurricular activities, it may be necessary to cut out some chores so does she doesn't become overwhelmed. You don't want to scale back too much though because then you lose the benefits of chores for teens. Instead, assess how your teen is doing with her chores. If she is having trouble completing them or does it later than you need them done, discuss the situation with her to decide if she may just need more time to complete the tasks or if she needs to cut out certain tasks. Of course, if you take away chores, the logical thing is to cut back on pay. However, it's up to you, as the parent, to choose to do that or just decrease her allowance slightly. It's important that she knows that less work means less pay, since that is what is expected in the work world.

Chores & Responsibilities

At first blush, it looks like a match made in heaven: you want your teen to do things, and your teen wants to do things. Perfect! But upon closer inspection you actually a match made in a much hotter, pitchfork-infested place. You want your teen to keep their room clean, dump the trash, walk the dog, clear the table, and rake the leaves. Your teen wants to chill, go out, chill, sleep in, and chill. At this point there may be only one thing you can agree upon: someone is making someone else's life a living hell here.

You're thinking, if they just did what they were supposed to, you would leave them alone. They're thinking, if you would just forget about that "do what they're supposed to" stuff and skip straight to the leaving them alone part, that'd work. (By the way, this may be the only time you may hear them using the word "work" in a sentence.)

Parents make excuses all the time for why their teenagers don't help out: "Susie's major responsibility is her schoolwork," or "oh well, of course I have to remind her, but she does feed the dog." Study after study, statistic after statistic tells us that children and teenagers who participate in family chores and undertake family or community responsibilities are ultimately happier with themselves and their families, have better family values, higher self-esteem, and grow up to become more productive members of society. If parents make excuses and allow their teenagers to sit back and do nothing but put their hand out every day for a twenty, they'll certainly be happy to go along. But what are they learning about how to live in the world? How to be a lazy, ungrateful sloth? Well, maybe that's a little strong, but you get the idea. So, do your teen a favor and teach -- okay, force -- them to pitch in and get to work. Fire the gardener, let the dog crap pile up on the lawn, leave the dishes in the sink, close the Daddy ATM, cancel the nanny and the housekeeper -- and put your teen to work. Without pay!