September 16, 2026 · 12 min read · By Andrew, creator of ChoreGenius
How to Get Kids to Do Chores Without Constantly Nagging Them
If you've ever asked your child to put away the dishes, reminded them ten minutes later, reminded them again twenty minutes after that, and eventually wondered why you didn't just do it yourself, you're not alone.
Getting kids to consistently help around the house can be frustrating.
I know because my wife and I struggled with exactly this. We tried chore charts and calendars with our three kids, and they never really stuck. Eventually, I realized that part of the problem was that we were trying to create a system that worked for us as parents without giving our kids much reason to care about it.
The good news is that the goal doesn't have to be finding the perfect chore chart or discovering the magical phrase that makes your child suddenly excited about folding laundry.
Instead, focus on creating a system where kids know what's expected, the work feels manageable, and they have some ownership over it.
Here are some strategies that can help.
1. Make the Chore Specific
"Clean the playroom" might sound like a perfectly reasonable request to an adult.
To a child staring at a floor covered in toys, books, art supplies, stuffed animals, and several objects of mysterious origin, it can feel overwhelming.
Instead of:
"Clean the playroom."
Try:
"Put all the Legos in their bins, put the books back on the shelf, and put the stuffed animals in the basket."
Child Mind Institute recommends making chores specific and breaking larger jobs into manageable steps, particularly while kids are still learning how to do them.
This doesn't mean you'll need to give step-by-step instructions forever. The goal is to provide more structure while they're learning and gradually remove it as they become more capable.
2. Choose Age-Appropriate Chores
A chore should challenge a child without setting them up to fail.
A five-year-old probably shouldn't be responsible for cleaning an entire bathroom. But they can put toys away, fill a pet's food bowl, sort laundry, or help set the table.
As kids get older, their responsibilities can grow with them.
The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests age-appropriate chores for kids around ages 8 to 10, such as vacuuming, helping prepare dinner, walking a pet, putting away laundry, and putting away groceries. By 11 or 12, many kids can start doing laundry, changing sheets, unloading the dishwasher, cleaning bathrooms, and preparing simple meals with supervision.
The exact age isn't what's important. Kids develop at different rates.
The principle is:
Give them work they can realistically learn to do, and increase the responsibility as their skills grow.
3. Make Chores Part of a Routine
One of the easiest ways for chores to become a constant negotiation is for them to happen randomly.
"Hey, can you empty the dishwasher?"
"Can you do it now?"
"How about now?"
When chores become part of a predictable routine—making chores part of a regular routine—there's less to negotiate.
Maybe the dishwasher gets emptied after school. The dog gets fed before dinner. The family room gets picked up before screen time.
The eventual goal is for the routine—not Mom or Dad—to become the reminder.
4. Give Kids Some Choice
There's a big difference between having no responsibilities and having some say in which responsibilities you take on.
Your child doesn't necessarily need to decide whether they're going to contribute. But you can sometimes let them decide how.
Would you rather unload the dishwasher or vacuum the family room?
Would you rather help with dinner or clean up afterward?
Experts also suggest giving kids some choice about which chores they do when possible, which can increase their sense of ownership.
In our house, we eventually took this idea even further.
We assigned points to different jobs based roughly on how much effort they required. Feeding the dog might be worth a point. Cleaning a disaster-zone playroom was worth considerably more.
Then we let our kids decide when they wanted to take on some of that work.
That changed the dynamic more than I expected.
If one of my daughters wasn't particularly motivated one day, fine. But if she woke up on Saturday morning determined to earn a bunch of points, she could take on several jobs and have at it.
The responsibilities still existed. But now there was also an element of choice and ownership.
Whatever system you use, look for places where you can give your child some control within boundaries you've established.
5. Don't Expect Them to Do It Your Way
This one can be difficult for parents.
Your eight-year-old probably isn't going to fold towels exactly the way you do.
That's okay.
If the standard for helping is "do it exactly as well as an adult would," kids don't have much room to learn.
Obviously, there are times when a job genuinely needs to be redone. But before correcting your child, ask yourself:
Is this actually wrong, or is it just not how I would have done it?
Those aren't always the same thing.
That's why The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends praising effort rather than expecting perfection when kids are still learning.
6. Teach the Chore Before Expecting Independence
Sometimes what looks like laziness is really a lack of knowledge.
"Load the dishwasher" seems obvious if you've done it thousands of times.
A kid may genuinely have no idea where the bowls go, whether plastic goes on the top rack, what to do with the big pan, or why putting a cup right-side-up in the dishwasher isn't particularly useful.
Do the chore together at first.
Show them.
Then let them do more of it themselves.
Eventually, step away.
The goal isn't simply getting today's dishwasher loaded. It's raising someone who knows how to load a dishwasher without you—focus on chores that build skills kids will need in the future.
7. Praise Initiative, Not Just Completion
There's an important difference between:
"Good job taking out the trash."
and:
"I noticed you took the trash out without anyone asking you. Thank you."
The second recognizes something bigger than the chore itself.
It recognizes initiative.
That's ultimately what most parents want.
Not a child who will do a chore after being asked six times.
A child who eventually notices something needs doing and takes care of it.
This lines up with the idea that it's helpful to praise children's effort and initiative when they take responsibility without being asked.
8. Consider Rewards—But Not Everything Needs a Reward
Families take very different approaches to allowance and rewards, and there's no single system every family needs to follow.
But I think there's an important distinction between responsibility and rewardable work.
In our family, for example, our kids don't earn points for cleaning their own rooms. We don't pay them for getting good grades, either.
Those are basic responsibilities.
But if you take on a job that contributes to the household—cleaning a shared playroom, helping with laundry, doing yard work, or taking care of another household task—we're comfortable rewarding that effort.
That distinction matters because I don't want the lesson to become:
"I should only do something if someone pays me."
Instead, the lesson is:
Some things are simply your responsibility. But taking on additional work can allow you to earn something you want.
Rewards don't necessarily have to mean money, either. Rewards can include praise, allowance, privileges, or points toward something a child wants—whatever makes sense for your family.
Whatever approach you choose, establish the rules ahead of time rather than inventing rewards in the middle of a conflict.
9. Connect Effort to Something Kids Actually Care About
This was the breakthrough for us.
At the same time that we were struggling to get our kids to do chores, we'd constantly go to stores and hear:
"Dad, can I get this?"
Eventually, I realized I could connect the two problems.
Our kids could earn points for doing work around the house and save those points toward things they wanted.
Suddenly the conversation at the store wasn't always about whether I was willing to buy something.
It became:
"Do I have enough points?"
And that created another interesting benefit.
If they didn't have enough, they could save.
If they spent everything they had, they'd have less for something else.
If they wanted something badly enough, they could do more work.
Once they'd earned it, I generally gave them quite a bit of freedom to decide what to spend it on, within reason. After all, they'd done the work.
What started as a way to motivate chores unexpectedly became a way to practice earning, saving, spending, delayed gratification, and decision-making—skills The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends giving kids opportunities to earn and manage money.
You certainly don't need a points system to teach those things. But connecting effort to something a child genuinely values can make chores feel less like an arbitrary demand from Mom or Dad.
10. Don't Turn Every Chore Into a Battle
Kids are going to have bad days.
So are adults.
Sometimes a child is tired, overwhelmed, frustrated, or simply doesn't feel like doing something.
That doesn't mean expectations disappear. But it also doesn't mean every moment of resistance needs to become a showdown. Encouragement and predictable consequences can be more effective than badgering or scolding.
One thing I like about giving kids some choice is that it removes some of that pressure.
If a particular chore is an opportunity to earn rather than a basic responsibility, choosing not to do it doesn't require an argument.
You don't do the work?
Okay. You don't earn the points.
Tomorrow you might feel differently.
That's very different from repeatedly saying:
"I've asked you three times. Go clean the playroom!"
Of course, some responsibilities aren't optional. Kids still need boundaries and expectations.
The trick is distinguishing between the things that simply must be done and the additional things kids can choose to do.
The Goal Is Bigger Than Getting the Chore Done
It's easy to lose sight of this when there's a sink full of dishes and you just want someone to empty the dishwasher.
But getting the chore done isn't really the long-term objective.
You're trying to raise someone who can eventually manage responsibilities without you.
Someone who can cook a meal.
Do laundry.
Take care of their belongings.
Notice when something needs to be done.
Contribute to a household.
Follow through on commitments.
And understand that being part of a family—or eventually a workplace, friendship, or community—sometimes means doing things because other people are counting on you.
The points system worked so well for our family that I eventually built ChoreGenius around the idea. But the app isn't the important part. You can run essentially the same system with a notebook, a spreadsheet, poker chips, or a piece of paper on the refrigerator.
The important part is finding a system that shifts some of the ownership from you to your kids.
There will still be reminders. There will still be half-folded laundry. There will probably still be arguments.
But little by little, the goal is to transfer responsibility from you to them.
Because someday, you shouldn't have to remind them at all.
Sources & Further Reading
Age-Appropriate Chores for Children — American Academy of Pediatrics / HealthyChildren.org