Discussion forum for parents in Australia
07-09-2019 02:27 PM
07-09-2019 05:50 PM
Hey @Atlanta ,
Good question, I'm sure parents will differ on this!
For me, I get my kids to keep their rooms clean. They're responsible for that space. My son is the eldest (15 years) and sometimes he also does the lawn and the dishes. But that's pretty rare!
If my kids want money, they need to do additional chores.
What are your thoughts on the topic?
07-09-2019 07:57 PM
I'm having issues with my 9 and 10 yr old . I started giving them chores about 2 yrs ago,lIke making they're bed ,taking out trash mainly just cleaning up! It's just in the summer time and they haven't given me a problem with it till this summer! I have a teenage son that doesn't have to do anything, not even cleaning up after himself! Well my little ones are asking me why they have chores and he doesn't! So they are giving me a hard time about doing chores! I don't want to make a big deal out of it but it's not fair! I don't know how to handle it without just stopping the chores, and I want my kids to be responsible and ready for the real world!
07-10-2019 11:51 AM
Hey @Atlanta,
Yah that is a really difficult situation. When your teenage child doesn't follow the rules (i.e., they refuse to clean up after themselves) it makes it really difficult to parent your younger children.
I still have the household expectations in place (i.e., all my kids are expected to keep their room clean) and if they don't meet those expectation then they lose their electronics (probably not the best parenting approach, but it has been working for a while now).
We have a different situation where our son (the eldest) doesn't want to do the 'extra' chores (e.g., the dishes) because he feels its not fair (why should I do it when they don't). In this scenario I remind him that he is not a child anymore (he has more responsibilities) and that he didn't have to do these extra chores when he was their age. Again, probably not the best parenting approach, but it usually works when I raise it.
Last year my son went off the rails (missing person/drugs/delinquency etc.) and nothing I did had any influence over him. My daughters saw everything and soon realised that I was "relaxing" most of my rules (e.g., keeping your room clean was not even raised, it was more about 'how do we keep him home?'). In this scenario, though, my daughters were mature enough to realise that "he was unreasonable and mum and dad are doing everything they can") and so they didn't complain that things were unfair (well sometimes, but nothing an open conversation didn't fix).
Your situation is really tricky and I would love to hear how others have managed this?
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