Chores by age
The chart only offers what is usually reasonable for the age you set. Roughly:
| Age | What becomes reasonable |
|---|---|
| 2–3 | Toys in the box, clothes in the basket, wiping their own spills |
| 4–5 | Bed made, table set, plate cleared, plants watered, room tidied |
| 6–8 | Dishwasher loaded, rubbish out, own laundry folded, sweeping, bag packed |
| 9–11 | Vacuuming, washing up, own sheets changed, bins to the kerb, a simple meal |
| 12–14 | A full load of laundry, mopping, washing the car, mowing, cooking for the family |
| 15+ | The grocery shop from a list, cleaning a kitchen properly, running their own schedule |
These follow the ordinary guidance and they are a starting point for a conversation, not a standard. Children vary enormously, and a chore that is easy for one seven-year-old is a battle with another.
Why chore charts stop working
Almost never because the chores were too hard. Nearly always one of three things:
“Done” was never defined. A made bed means something different to a nine-year-old than to the person checking. Deciding what it has to look like — once, out loud — removes most of the friction permanently.
Nobody checks. A chart is a record, not a manager. If nothing looks at it, it becomes wallpaper within a fortnight. Checking has to be somebody’s job at a specific time.
Too many lines. A chart with fifteen chores on it cannot be read at a glance, and anything that cannot be read at a glance does not get read. Eight is about the limit; four is often better.
The house-rules block at the bottom of the sheet exists for exactly these. It is worth filling in with everyone in the room.
Paid or unpaid
Both approaches work and there is no settled answer.
The argument for unpaid is that a household runs on contributions and being part of it is not a job. The argument for paid is that it connects work to money at an age where that is worth learning.
The most common workable compromise is a split: a baseline of unpaid chores because you live here, plus specific extra jobs that are paid — washing the car, a full clear-out of the garage. What matters far more than the choice is deciding it in advance. Renegotiating pay on a Saturday morning when the bins have not gone out is the worst possible time to have the conversation.
Rotating or fixed
Fixed chores get better and faster — someone who empties the dishwasher every day stops thinking about it, and the chore takes a third of the time it used to. The cost is that it becomes “their” job and resentment accumulates if the jobs are unequal.
Rotating feels fairer and prevents that, but nothing ever becomes automatic and every week involves a small re-learning.
A workable middle: fix the daily habits per person, rotate the weekly jobs. The shared grid layout is designed for that — write a name in the box on the day it is that person’s turn.
Start with fewer chores than you think and keep them for longer than feels necessary. The chart’s value is that things stop being negotiated every day, and that only happens once the same lines have been in the same places for a couple of months.