Why chores are an important part of school

When I entered kindergarten, a very long time ago, my school called it Primer, not kindergarten.  We had two classrooms within which we moved and learned.  We must have stayed until at least 2 pm because I remember eating lunch and having a nap on one of those trifold plastic mats that were red on one side and blue on the other.  I also remember lying next to my friend Liza when she took out her barrette and stuck it in an outlet.  Who knew those plastic mats could also be as efficient as sleds, sliding across the room at lightning speed to get away from the sparks that came out of the outlet?  The black burn marks around the outlet were still there when I graduated 13 years later.

In our kindergarten rooms, tables remained in each classroom, but we each had our own chair, which needed to be transported from one room to the other for use.  This meant our first week of school was consumed with how to carry the chair safely and efficiently.  We were to stand next to it, place one hand on the back of the chair and one under the seat, then lift and move to our next destination, whether it was the manipulatives table, art table, or language arts station.

We were working.  It was a chore requiring our physical exertion multiple times each day.

Today, children still perform chores in the classroom, though I suspect chair-carrying would be frowned upon.  Regardless, chores serve several purposes, not the least of which is their contribution to the improvement of the classroom as a whole when they include cleaning up toys, wiping down tables, or taking out the trash.

Chores help children build a sense of community as they work together towards a beneficial end. This helps themexperience the results of goal setting, and can also give them a sense of pride and contribution to their community space. Chores also build a sense of responsibility and self-sufficiency, two things children crave, yet have been squeezed out by well-meaning helicopter or gentle parenting styles.  Additionally, chores have been shown to give children an enhanced sense of empathy as adults and can be predictive of their success in their mid-20s.  (Dishongh, 2015) In other words, chores build social-emotional capacity in children.

But there is more!   Chores also help children read and write.

Yep, if you didn’t hear me, for those in the back, chores help children learn to read and write.

How?

• To write, children need strong arms and hands.  They need to understand force and how much is needed, or how little is needed, to put a pencil to paper and leave a mark without breaking the pencil tip.
• Children need to understand how long their arms are and how much force it takes to move and control them so they can manipulate a pencil on the page.
• They need to be able to sit at a desk or chair with comfort, to hold a book, or manage a spelling test, so they need core strength.
• Children need their eyes to move from left to right and cross the midline of their bodies to follow words on a page.
• They need to understand space so they can judge how much is needed on a page to hold a letter, word, or sentence.

These skills come from the simple tasks like:

• Pressing down while wiping a table or erasing a whiteboard.  This pressure builds grip, upper body, and core strength while experimenting with force.
• Carrying the class backpack to the playground.  This puts pressure on almost all the joints of the body, helping children internalize an understanding of force.
• Stomping the recycling internalizes force while carrying out the trash builds arm, hand, and core strength by putting pressure on the joints to help children understand the movement of their bodies.
• Packing their backpack at the end of the day helps children understand space, which helps them judge how much space a letter, word, or sentence will take up on a page when writing.

In other words, the chores children tackle in school aren’t designed to make the teacher’s work easier.  They are intended to support essential social-emotional skills while also laying a foundation for elementary school work.

And the chores shouldn’t stop when the school day ends.  Interestingly, a study from Braun Research in 2014 found that 82% of parents surveyed for the study had chores as children, yet only 28% gave their own children chores. (Morley 2023)

Reinforcing these skills and continuing to build these strengths at home just makes school easier when children do chores at home, like:

• Loading the dishwasher helps them understand space and build strength in their arms and hands.
• Washing the dishes helps them build hand, arm, and core strength while they use their two hands for different jobs; the two sides of their brains have to work together, reinforcing creative, complex, and critical thought.  Most kitchens today have plenty of plastic cups and plates around that children can easily be tasked with cleaning with little disaster if they are inadvertently dropped.
• Sweeping and mopping require children’s hands and eyes to cross the midline, making reading easier.  It builds upper body and core strength, so sitting at a desk or holding a book is easier.
• Taking out the trash further builds core, grip, and upper body strength.  It is also the kind of heavy work that helps them build a mental map of their bodies so they know how long their arms and legs are and how much force it takes to move and control them.

What does all of this mean?

All of these activities build essential skills, so don’t be fooled by thinking that swapping out time learning Chinese for taking out the trash will not lead to a child’s successful learning journey.  In truth, chores will build a strong foundation on which learning another language and other morechallenging academic pursuits become easier.

It means we want to see teachers asking their children to do chores, and when you see a teacher doing just that, thank them!