I don't have it all figured out, but I do know that toddlers LOVE to do anything the adults are doing that appears to be a grown-up activity. This makes it pretty easy to get them involved in helping. Here's some things we've done so far. I haven't "planned" these chores for Jax, they have just naturally flowed from our daily activities.
Jax is almost two years old, and has been "helping" with chore-type items since he was about 18 mths. Here's a few things he helps with.
- Pick up trash he finds laying somewhere and throw it out (thankfully he is a good judge of what is trash and what is not). He does this of his own accord; he notices little things out of place and wants to make it right. Any small bit of thing he finds is either called a seed or a "piece a pastor" (piece of plastic).
- Empty a small trash can into a larger trash can. This can get messy so I don't have him do this chore regularly yet, not so much because cleaning the mess bothers me as because having made a mess upsets Jax.
- Help empty the lower rack of the dishwasher (non fragile items). He knows where the cutting boards go and can reach them. I'm ready to teach him to put away the utensils but have hesitated since we have so many variations of the same thing. There isn't one tray for spoons, there are six trays for six different sizes and styles of spoons.
- Help me cook (this happens almost every day). This is a great way to get him to sample foods he might not eat if I served them on his plate.
- Put his pajamas into the laundry hamper in the morning after I get him dressed for the day.
- Clean up up toys with me. We clean toy messes before we leave the house or go outside to play or change toy activities (such as putting away the trucks before getting out the markers and coloring books). We clean toys before nap and before bed.
- "Sort" laundry, carry laundry to the laundry room / put soap in the dispenser of washing machine / transfer laundry from washer to dryer / dryer to basket, etc. I can't let him help fold it yet because he just wants to put things in and out of baskets regardless of whether or not I have just folded them.
- Put non-fragile food items into or out from the refrigerator.
- Partially "set" the table by putting utensils and place mats out for everyone. I hand him one set of utensils at a time for one place setting at a time, with specific instructions: "Take this spoon and fork to Daddy's placemat."
- If he spills something on the floor I have him help clean it with a towel. He calls this "clean a towel."
- He would love to sweep and mop too, but I rarely do those. The vacuum is still too tall for him to push, or he would like to do that too.
I have taught him to help by:
1) Doing helping tasks together with him, so it's something fun we are doing together. It becomes a desirable adult activity he gets to participate in.
2) Lots and lots of positive praise initially to learn a behavior, and continued praise to reinforce the behavior. Over time, the quantity of praise diminishes slightly for learned tasks, continuing more so for newer tasks.
At 23 months, I am not going to discipline him for failing to pick up toys when I ask. Instead, I am going to invite him to help me, and act like it's fun in the hopes he will join me. If he doesn't, I clean it up myself and cheer for myself, "Yay Mommy! You are a good helper Mommy! Good job Mommy!", to make him want in on the action. This is how I initially taught him to pick up toys (cheering for myself then encouraging him to copy my activity such as putting blocks in a bucket when he was still at the age when all he did was dump them out). Now, I rarely need to cheer for myself anymore; just for him.
Anytime he is helpful, I praise him, for example, "Good job! Thank you for being SO HELPFUL to Mommy! You are such a good helper to Mommy!" He is a bottomless pit for affection as well, so I will often give him a hug along with the praise, which he eats up.
If he doesn't seem to want to help, I try to remind him why we're doing it. For example, if you want to go outside (which he loves), we need to clean up these toys first.
I don't have a list of chores for him at this age, but we do have certain things he helps with every day, like I have mentioned, and the routine of it becomes familiar before there is a list to follow.
At his age, any task for him still involves my help or at least my observation and praise.
I am blessed that he is a very observant person, and likes things to be in order. If he walks by the pantry door left open, or the toilet seat left up, he closes the door / lid all of his own accord. He even tries to close the toilet seat while I am sitting on it because he wants to help.
When we cook together, he tastes pretty much everything, even things he would never eat if I served them to him. If I measure with measuring cups or measuring spoons, I can let him help hold it while we dump it into the bowl. He likes to stir things around in a bowl (which also gives him control of the utensil so he can taste-test). He likes to press buttons on the blender or mixer. I once tried letting him cut with a butter knife, but his dexterity isn't quite ready yet and he just got frustrated (he was also trying to chop raw carrots because that's what I was chopping even though I had given him something softer - cheese - to chop instead, and chopping raw carrots with a butter knife would be frustrating even for an adult!).
He has actually helped me two or three times recently where I actually needed another set of hands (holding a door open to carry something through that I needed two hands to hold, etc.). It felt so wonderful to have him there, not just learning to help me and making a mess along the way, but actually helping me in a meaningful way that I needed at that moment. The difference may not be clear to him yet, but it was for me.
He loves to participate in anything I'm doing, which makes it easy to "teach" him "chores." Helping is so much fun for him still.
