Chores...

Chores are a great way to teach your children about responsibility, and about contributing to the whole - at the start it is the family but that translates to the society at large. You do them because it helps the family, not because you get paid. It is part of what it takes to run a household and everyone pitches in (here is where it is important that Dad is participating as well or the message is mixed at best).

Not long ago there was a lot more work that went into maintaining a family - gardens, food prep, dishes, house cleaning, etc. But now chores seem harder to find. Many families seem to spend less and less food prep time and more and more taxi time carting kids to never-ending teams, clubs and lessons. I guess I think it is about balance. Lessons in music or being on sports teams are good things, but when connected with a couple recent blog posts on play, it is important to have a balance between all the activities a family/child does. And the families that I watch seem to be very short on meaningful chores: work around the house that really needs doing to keep the family functioning, and is age appropriate all the way up as a child grows. (Don't include homework in the "chores" category - that is a separate, and important task for children).

You can check out two blogs that post on children and chores as both reference the same research on how many kids are involved in chores these days. The numbers are dropping rapidly.

Here is a site that is focused on chores and the sample page includes pdf samples for various ages. It does include homework and personal hygiene (which is a base level skill) but it does provide a place to start.

Chores are important.
"Doing household chores as a child turns out to be a major predictor of whether an individual does volunteer or community work as an adult, according to sociologists, who note that housework is an important teaching tool. And when it comes to domestic bliss, the distribution of domestic duties—grounded in childhood chores—can make or break a marriage."

(Check out the cartoons from Gary Olson like the one you see above)