Chore charts by age
- Chore chart for ages 3 to 5 Six short daily jobs a preschooler can do, most of them with you. 6 daily and 4 weekly chores.
- Chore chart for ages 6 to 8 Seven daily jobs and five weekly ones for early elementary kids. 7 daily and 5 weekly chores.
- Chore chart for ages 9 to 10 The dishwasher, laundry with help and a real weekly cleaning job. 7 daily and 5 weekly chores.
- Chore chart for ages 11 to 12 Dinner dishes, their own laundry and a weekly bathroom clean. 6 daily and 5 weekly chores.
- Chore chart for teens Fewer, bigger jobs: the kitchen, their laundry, yard work, groceries. 5 daily and 5 weekly chores.
- Allowance chart for teens Typical weekly amounts for 13 to 17, an allowance agreement, extra jobs and a four week tracker.
- After school checklist Unpack, snack, homework, chores and ready for tomorrow, in versions for ages 5 to 8 and 9 to 12.
How to make a paper chore chart work
Fill it in together
Go through the chart with your child before it goes on the fridge. Cross out what does not fit your house and add their ideas in the blank rows. Kids stick with a plan they had a say in.
Start with fewer rows than you think
If six daily jobs is a lot for your child, cover some up for the first week. Behavior programs that work add one step at a time, once the last one happens without reminders.
Check it at the same time every day
Right after dinner or before bed. A routine at a fixed time takes over the reminding, and responding the same way every day matters more than the chart itself.
Tick it with praise, not instead of it
When a box gets ticked, say what they did: "you wiped the whole table". Specific praise is what makes a chart work, and points or rewards work best on top of it.
Let it fade
Once a routine happens on its own for a few weeks, take it off the chart and put something new on. The goal is a kid who does the job, not a kid who does the chart.
Questions about chore charts
Do chore charts actually work?
Charts that pair ticks or points with specific praise and small, reliable rewards are a core part of parent training programs with decades of research behind them. What makes them work is consistency: checking the chart every day and following through the same way each time.
What should go on a chore chart?
A handful of daily jobs the child can do alone, a few weekly ones, and one new job to try. Each chart here starts from the list for the youngest age in its band, so everything on it is achievable. Older kids can add more from their own age page.
Should I use a paper chart or an app?
Paper is a fine place to start and costs nothing. An app starts to help when you have several kids, want the points added up for you, or want kids to tick off their own list on a tablet or family screen.
Sources
Where this page makes a claim about safety or research, it comes from:
- Parent management training (research chapter). Alan E. Kazdin, Yale University.
- Tips for Using Praise and Rewards. CDC, Essentials for Parenting Toddlers and Preschoolers.
- Tips for Relying on Routines and Rules. CDC, Essentials for Parenting Toddlers and Preschoolers.
- Parent Praise to 1- to 3-Year-Olds Predicts Children's Motivational Frameworks 5 Years Later. Gunderson et al., Child Development, 2013.
- A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Deci, Koestner and Ryan, Psychological Bulletin, 1999.
