4 Easy Steps for Sharing Responsibility at Home

Sharing responsibility at home for the spaces everyone shares will make your life much easier and teach your kids an important life skill. So, if you spend time each night picking up after your kids, keep reading.

Because as soon as your kids can get things out by themselves, they are capable of putting them back.

It doesn’t have to be hard to implement sharing responsibility at home, especially if you start when your kids are young.

It can be as simple as letting your young child know that one activity needs to be put away before another can be started, especially when the playing takes place in a family space (such as the living room).

Then, as the child gets older and is capable of more, start talking about sharing responsibility at home by doing the following:

1. First, your family will need to go over why a family space is the family team’s responsibility. When everyone uses something, it’s everyone’s responsibility to take care of it. What does that mean, though?
2. As a family, you’ll need to decide what it means to take care of a family space together. Does everyone just clean up after themselves? What about vacuuming or dusting or other things that need to be done to keep the entire area clean?
   Are these things split up among family members? Do they rotate through the family? Figure out the tasks that need to be done to keep the space clean and which family members are capable of completing those tasks.
   Then decide as a family how to divvy them up. Don’t forget to decide how often each task should be done (e.g., daily, once a week or on a certain day, every other week).
3. Are there other rooms the family will be sharing responsibility for? If so, list what they are and go back to step 2 for each additional room.
4. How will tasks be kept track of? Will there be a chart somewhere? And what happens if a task isn’t done (e.g., no playing until the task is completed)?

Once your plan is in place for sharing responsibility at home, give it time to see how well it works.

When issues come up, as they invariably will, address them at your next family dinner and discuss different options until everyone agrees on a solution.

Do tasks or responsibilities need to be changed to resolve the issue? If so, update your list. Continue to talk openly with your kids and spouse and make changes as needed.