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Our job as parents is to prepare our children for the future. There is a time and a place for everything, and the teenage years are a great time to teach them how to perform basic tasks and take care of a household. It might cause tension some days, but they will appreciate it later. This article will give you lots of ideas about chores for teenagers.
Food and Kitchen chores
One critical life skill, in my opinion, is to learn to cook basic things and be self-sufficient in the kitchen. Most children will eventually leave the home and although they may choose to make ramen noodles every day, knowing they have the knowledge and skills to do more is reassuring as a parent.
Getting comfortable in the kitchen doesn’t happen overnight. The more age-appropriate responsibility you can give your child and your teenager in the kitchen, the better off they will be.
By the time your child reaches 13, they should be able to handle the following responsibilities:
- Empty and refill the dishwasher
- Empty trash can
- Clean countertops
- Clean stovetop, microwave, sink etc.
- Cut vegetables, fruits, and meat (finger guards are great accessories to use early on as your child builds confidence, here are 2 great options: option 1, option 2
- Use a peeler
- Use the microwave, stove, oven, dishwasher
- Wash and dry dishes (if you are okay with them air drying some dishes, this is an awesome rack!)
- Read a recipe
- Make some basics: soup packets, grilled cheese, scrambled eggs, boil noodles, make package muffins etc.
- Make their lunch (fun lunch boxes and accessories can help create some excitement)
As they fully enter their teenage years, my experience is that they will have less interest in learning new things in the kitchen. Therefore, I recommend teaching a lot of these responsibilities as early as possible. Between 13 and when they leave your home is when you can grow their comfort level in the kitchen. At that time, ideas of chores for teenagers would include:
- Learn to use the grill (start, cook, replace propane, clean)
- Cook actual meals. A great way to increase their comfort level is to buy meal kits. I will let my teenagers pick a meal kit and that week they will be responsible for making that meal. This has worked well for us.
- Learn how to plan meals
- Learn how to make a grocery list
- Understand meat-safe cooking temperature (get a good digital thermometer to avoid the guessing game)
- Understand other food safety rules: wash hands after handling raw meat, how long is food safe outside of the refrigerator, etc.
Here are a few really helpful accessories to consider purchasing to help your kids learn and become more comfortable with the cooking process:
- clip-on silicon colander
- finger guards
- good knives (people cut themselves each day with bad and dull kitchen knives)
- glass microwave vegetable steamer
- small food processor as they learn about efficiency in the kitchen,
- heat-resistant and safe cooking utensils
- a pressure cooker (these are fantastic to get meals that would otherwise take hours fast, but safety is important, teach them to use them safely.)
- pasta measuring tool
- Immersion blender (I use mine almost daily, it’s a great tool to learn to use)
House Cleaning chores
Teenagers are competent beings despite what they want you to believe. Don’t give them a pass on sharing household chores. You don’t have to do it all alone. They can and should be part of keeping your house clean and orderly. There are so many chores you can assign to them. The list below is by no means fully inclusive but is intended to give you ideas that you can adjust for your situation.
- Do their laundry (including sheets)
- Clean bathrooms
- Clean their room
- Vacuum (a lightweight but powerful vacuum is key, we have this one and LOVE it!)
- Mop floors (we use a Bona mop for our tiles and wood floors, we’ve even gifted it!)
- Clean windows
- Dust wall trims
- Replace air filter
- Add salt to the water softener
- Take trash out
- Handle recycling including breaking down boxes
- Seasonal cleaning: ceiling fans, decorative shelves, light fixtures, etc
Outdoor work chores
Depending on what kind of property you live on, you may not have all of these tasks or have additional ones. To raise well-rounded teens who will become effective and useful adults, it is smart to get them involved in a variety of activities, including outdoor chores for teenagers.
- Vacuum the garage (we have this battery-operated small shop vac, it works for wet or dry)
- Mow the grass (We also have an electric mower which is lightweight for the kids to use from a young age, this is a similar option to the one we have. It works great for small to medium lots)
- Weed the flower beds
- Lay down the mulch
- Power wash the deck or sidings
- Rake leaves
- Wash the car
- Water plants
- Shovel the driveway
- Clean the gutters
- Clean windows
How to motivate teens
That is the million-dollar question, and if you figure out how, please let me know. In all seriousness, I’d say most teenagers are not proactive in offering to help. As parents, it’s easy to give up and just do it ourselves. However, we are not doing them any favors.
You could use the obvious technique of rewarding for chores well done by giving an allowance or other privileges that are meaningful to your child. You could try to explain the concept of being part of a household and therefore needing to do their portion to keep everything running smoothly.
In our home, we do a little of both. Our children started receiving an allowance pretty early on in exchange for performing chores. They receive their age in allowance every other week. For example, a 10-year-old would get $10 every 2 weeks. When they were younger, we also aligned the number of chores they did with their age. So the 10-year-old would have 10 weekly chores. As they got older and their chores are longer and more complex, we stopped counting the chores. We also chose to pay an additional amount for certain chores such as mowing the lawn.
Consider incorporating seasonal chores as well. Here is a best summer chores list and Fall chores list.
The last point to mention is we will also add extra jobs during the summer break. We look at things that need to get done and make a list of extra chores for my teens to do. For example, I might ask them to do a full cleaning of their closet, sort out their bookshelf to get rid of books they no longer need/want, etc.
In conclusion
This article was all about chores for teenagers. Give yourself the gift of extra help and give them a head start on becoming highly independent and functional adults. I promise they will thank you later.
Thanks for reading.
Cat xx
