Age Appropriate Chores and Allowances

I never did an allowance with my now 17 yo son. I also never got an allowance.

The items that you listed are (to me) part of taking more responsibility for yourself (brushing teeth, laying out clothes) or are part of contributing to the house (picking up their toys, putting laundry away, putting dishes away, etc.) as you get older.

If my son helped out with something special like help rake leaves, or carry the bags of mulch around the house for me, etc., then I gave him a few dollars. That's how I was raised.

I think when allowances are tied to chores, then you are caught up in the reminding them to do chores, documenting that they did it or did it well enough to get 'credit', if they did it and then someone else messed it up afterwards, etc.

Once my son mentioned about me giving him some money because he helped me carry some boxes down to the basement, I rattled off the list and prices of extra things that I recently did or paid for him (movie, small toy, etc.). Within a few seconds, he really owed ME about $25 so that ended that conversation quickly. Oh, and the "Mom Stink Eye" helped.

I am probably not the person to ask...the way I have always approached chores is that we all live in the house, we all take care of the house. We all pitch in, we all work, we all get to do the crappy stuff like clean toilets and empty the dishwasher. I never paid for chores, chores were just something we all had to do as being a part of the citizens of our household. 

Everyone is responsible for their own part of the space (bedrooms/bathrooms) and their laundry. Everyone pitches in to keep the rest of the space tidy (vacuum/dusting/sweeping/kitchen clean up) and other chores as needed. 

I started this when the kids were little and over the years it has really worked well for us. Sometimes a little bit of a hissy fit gets thrown, but for the most part, the kids know what is expected and do it. 

ETA: I see I am not the only one who feels this way.

When our daughter was 4 we made a chart for her daily stuff. shower, teeth, brush hair, get dressed, get ready for bed at night, etc..... each of those gave her a nickel. then we had feed hamster, pick up and put all her stuff back into her room if any of it was downstairs in the living room. that got her a dime. cleaning her room daily wasn't that much but it got her a quarter. if she did a big clean weekly then she got a dollar. she wasn't yet old enough to do a lot of stuff but she did take out the bathroom garbage(we had 2 bathrooms) and our bedroom garbage. on garbage night with husband she would get a dime for each bag. if she emptied and put a new bag in the cans.  she loved to help me unload the dishwasher so we usually gave her a dollar when she did that. she would also help set and clear the table most nights but not all nights. if she did both the setting and the clearing then she got a dollar but if she did one or the other she got 50 cents. she got $4 for helping clean the hamster cages. It took about 2 hours total because of all the tubes and cages we had... She wanted them she had to learn how to take care of them. We only cleaned the cages once a week.  Making her bed got her 50 cents a day. I hate making beds so I thought it was worth more when she made it. all she had was a comforter and pillows. 

She always wanted money but had no clue to what the difference between a nickel, dime, quarter or a dollar. that is how we taught her. She was given play money one time and she loved it but couldn't figure out why she couldn't take it to the store and spend it like we could. so we taught her the difference. by the time she was in kindergarten she knew what money was and what it was worth. to her any way. 

As she grew so did her chores and so did the money for each chore. we also taught her how important it was to brush her teeth twice every day and take showers by the time she was 6 she wasn't getting paid for her hygiene stuff but she got more money for other chores. 

I think it is important to start kids doing chores and getting allowances (we never called it allowance) at an early age. because then they grow up with good habits. 

I would not consider most things on your first list chores. They are tasks that a child has to perform, but they are for themselves. The second list is more what i think of as chores.

We pay our children $1/year of age - with 20% going into savings and 10% to charity. I don't buy toys, snacks, or anything else when we are out shopping - if they want it, they must buy it from their own allowance.

Hmm. I don't see the first list as being chores per se, I think of that stuff as personal responsibility/self care that kids need to do for their own well being. When I think of chores, it's more like your second list which includes cleaning, picking up, general household responsibilities done for the good of the family. Our DD is pretty young yet, but she does have to do some of those household things now (pick up her toys/books in the common areas of the house, make her bed, keep her room picked up, pair up clean socks, feed the dogs, etc.) and we will add to her list as she gets older. 

We want DD to understand that doing household chores is a part of living and therefore she won't be compensated for those chores. I certainly don't get an "allowance" for doing the laundry, cooking, dishes, etc. and DH doesn't get one for mowing the grass or shoveling snow or changing the oil on the cars. We do those tasks because we live in a house and want to maintain it, so of course our kid should have to do some of those things because she is a part of our household. We don't (and won't) give a regular allowance.

However, there have already been times when DD (now 4) has wanted something extra that we have not been willing to just buy for no reason, and so we have given her the opportunity to earn some money by doing *additional* chores for us and that has worked out well. We were very surprised by how motivated she was to work and save up for what she wanted and those are the lessons we want her to learn.

I think as she gets older she will have a set list of weekly household chores that she needs to do, and we will establish a set amount of money that we would be willing to pay her for specific *additional* occasional tasks that she can choose to do if she wants to earn some money. The more she works, the more she will get paid just like in the real world.