Growing up, my mom always had us kids help with the chores. It was a huge set of necessary skills that I am grateful to have now that I am an adult. My mom started having me do chores as soon as I could walk, but I think 7-year-olds especially need to start doing chores. The question poses, though, what chores are appropriate for my 7-year-old to do?
Below I have collected a list of chore ideas to give your 7-year-old that are perfectly age and maturity appropriate for this age group.
1 – Bathroom Trash
Having your 7-year-old collect all of the bathroom trash bags and other various small trash bags in the house, such as in an office maybe, is an awesome chore for this age group. The bags and trash load are all a manageable size for your child to handle and are easy to collect and take out to your dumpster or even throw in your bigger trash can inside your house so that they can all be taken out in one trip.
Taking out the main trash bag would be a nice chore for this age group too, however, the big trash bag is often too big and heavy for this age group to handle. If your 7-year-old is on the bigger side than most peewee 7-year-olds, they could possibly handle the trash. It all basically depends on what your kid can ultimately handle. Generally, though, the big trash is too big or heavy for your 7-year-old to handle.
2 – Sweeping
Sweeping is a great chore for 7-year-olds. By this age, they can easily handle a broom and have enough maturity and coordination to properly sweep the floor. It is super cute to see toddlers pretend to sweep the floor, not actually having their little play broom hit the floor and simply shuffling around the dirt, but it is a chore that has to actually get done sometimes. By the time your kid reaches age 7 they should be perfectly capable of doing so properly. Then, you don’t have to do this annoying chore, right?
3 – Dusting
From my experience, both from when I was 7, having younger siblings, and being around so many 7-year-olds as an adult, I know for a fact that they LOVE dusting as a chore! Perfect, right? I don’t know about you, but dusting isn’t my favorite so it is awesome that they love it so much! All you have to do is hand them a damp washcloth or even one of those cool Swiffer dusters and tell them where to dust and explain that they have to hit every surface and they will just go to town!
They see dusting as an easy chore that they can do and it makes a difference. It also makes mom happy, which, who wouldn’t want that? An unhappy mommy can be a scary mommy!
4 – Make Their Bed
Every kid should know how to make their bed. Especially by age 7! I can totally understand that a toddler may not be able to make their own bed, but by the time they reach age 7, they should be able to make their bed well. When I was little my mom always had me make my bed as soon as I got up or at least have it done before dinner. We were pretty busy people so that leeway time was always nice.
My mom would expect my sheet and comforter to be pulled up and placed nicely, my pillows set up, and my dolls put away or organized. She would also have me fold my extra blankets if necessary. If my bed wasn’t neat, she would have me do it again. She even had me help me completely remake my bed after she washed my sheets.
It was super annoying at the time because that darn fitted sheet was the worst to try and deal with, but I can tell you that now I can make a bed so tight I can almost bounce a coin off of it! It may be a pill, but once you know how, you can create a beautiful bed display that is Pottery Barn worthy
5 – Clean Their Room
This one is especially a good chore for 7-year-old kids to have! Kids, especially around this age, are super messy and leave everything everywhere. Yes, toddlers and babies do the same, but they can’t always pick up their toys. 7-year-olds, on the other hand, are more than capable of putting away their toys and dress-up clothes. They just don’t like to!
Having them clean their room is a simple task for them to do. They know where all of their toys go, so they can put them away on their own. They know where all of their clean and dirty laundry goes, so they can put their clean laundry away and neatly put their dirty laundry in their hamper. It is super easy for them to do and you know that if they can pull it out to play with, they are more than capable of putting it back too!
6 – Pull Weeds
Pulling weeds is a very good chore for 7-year-olds as well. They can pull weeds anywhere in your yard too! They can pull weeds out of potted plants, flower beds, the garden, and even the lawn! Simply show them how to pull it out from the root so that you don’t have these nasty, annoying pests multiply everywhere and you should be more than fine with your 7-year-old doing this chore.
7 – Unload The Dishwasher
Unloading the dishwasher is a great chore for 7-year-olds for a couple reasons. This chore teaches your kid where everything gets put away in your kitchen. It will also teach them how to handle and organize dishes. It may not seem very important, but it is a good skill to have still! plus, then that’s another thing that you don’t have to do so you aren’t pulling all the weight on the housework all the time.
8 – Water Plants
Watering plants is one of those out of sight out of mind chores that is super simple to do, but some people don’t usually think about… or is this just me? Either way, this chore is great for your 7-year-old because it helps teach them how to take care of plants. I can’t seem to keep any plants alive and I think it is simply because I have never been in the habit of watering plants because my mom and I both always forgot to water them. When we would water them, it would just be emptying half full water bottles that had been left around into the pots. It still worked for the most part though!
9 – Get the Mail
When my sisters and I were younger we always loved going to the mailbox to grab the mail and see what “letters” and magazines we (my parents) got. We would have to wait till our parents were home from work because our mailbox was across the street from our house, but when they were home they would stand on the porch and watch us while we grabbed it quick. They would have us walk together, check both ways before crossing, grab the mail, check both ways again, then come back to the house.
We lived a couple blocks from the town high school so our road had quite a bit of traffic, but it was great to instill the habit of checking the road before crossing it. I now CAN’T cross a street without checking both ways!
When we got the mail we were always in charge of organizing who it went to by person. I remember we always had a stack for magazines, a stack for envelopes addressed to Dad, and another stack for envelopes addressed to Mom, and then if us girls happened to get any mail we would add a stack for whoever as well. Doing so helped everyone get their own mail and helped to teach us how to organize a bit.
10 – Vacuum
Vacuuming is a great job for a 7-year-old because they are finally big enough to handle the vacuum and its a fairly easy machine to use. They know how to turn it on, and then they simply just push it around so that it sucks all the dirt, hair, crumbs, and other junk out of the carpet.
11 – Fold Laundry
By the age of 7, I was folding laundry a lot. My mom had me folding all of my clean clothes, towels, blankets, and even sheets and pillowcases. It isn’t too hard of a job to do by age 7. Sheets and big blankets are harder to do when you are little, but that’s when my mom would have my sisters and I tag-team the job so that we could help each other if the blanket was too big to handle on our own.
12 – Match Socks
Similar to folding clothes and blankets and towels, etc., is matching socks. I would have put this chore with folding clothes, but I feel like it is an entirely new monster in itself. Growing up, my family always had a sock basket that we would throw all of the clean socks in because for some reason the pairs never got washed together at the same time.
Of course, when we washed our laundry and everything, we got in the habit of throwing the clean socks in this basket and they would eventually build up and by the time someone was almost out of socks entirely someone would have to sit down, deconstruct the entire basket, and go on a huge sock matching spree until we were down to just unmatched socks again and the cycle would restart.
This job is great for 7-year-olds, and even younger kids, because not only does it teach them how to fold socks together, it also helps them with their matching skills.
13 – Load the Dishwasher
This chore will take a bit more teaching and help, but loading the dishwasher is a great chore for this age group too. You will have to handle any fragile class pieces you don’t want the kid handling quite yet along with the knives probably and any hand-wash items, but having your kid load the dishwasher is great too! It’s less dishes you have to do and it teaches them how to start doing dishes too!
All you have to do to prep them for this job is show them what dishes go in the dishwasher and, if you are like me, how the general organization of it should go. Show them they need to scrape or rinse the big chunks off the dishes and then just set the dishes in the dishwasher. You will have to show them where the soap goes and how to start it as well, but if your kid can handle an iPad and a tv remote, they shouldn’t have any trouble with this appliance.
14 – Set the Dinner Table
Growing up, my mom always loved to have nice family dinners. She wouldn’t mind any other meal being informal, but a nice family dinner was always something she liked. Along with family dinner, came setting the table with all the dishes and silverware and even putting ice in cups and pot holders on the table for the pots and pans coming off the stove. This was always a kid job and still is when kids are home.
She would have us set out the plates and bowls, set the silverware in it’s proper place setting on a napkin, set pretty glasses (or nicer cups that are more kid appropriate) above the plates and put some ice in the bottom of them or have ice in its own bowl for drinks, and we would also have to make sure that pot holders and trivets were on the table to necessarily accommodate the hot pots and pans of dinner food coming off the stove. It was a whole process and we couldn’t go play before dinner until it was done.
15 – Disinfect Things
When my mom would do cleaning day, another thing that she would have us do that is an awesome job for 7-year-olds is run around the house to disinfect anything we could that people touched. She would hand us a Clorox wipe and tell us to hop to it. We would disinfect remotes, door locks and handles, light switches, and any surfaces that are commonly touched like tables and counters. We did this about weekly.
16 – Simple Yard-work
You might be wondering what I mean by simple yard-work thinking “I’m not having my child swinging around a deadly tool!!” but don’t worry. I would go “scary mommy” over that too. By simple yard-work, I mean things like raking leaves and picking up twigs. Easy, harmless stuff that are simple for your 7-year-old to handle. Below I have added a list of yard-work I used to do as a kid.
Simple Yard-Work for 7-Year-Olds
- Rake Leaves
- Pick Up Fallen Fruit
- Pick Up Loose Sticks/Rocks in the Lawn
- Pick Up Pet Poop
- Sweep Off the Porch, Patio, or Walking Path
- Weed the Garden, Potted Plants, etc.
- Stack Pre-Chopped Firewood and Kindling
- Picking From the Garden or Fruit Trees
- Helping Plant Foods, Flowers, etc.
17 – Neaten Rooms
I know you might be thinking, “You already told us they could clean their own rooms” but they can also help neaten other rooms around the house too! We all know that a lot of their toys and such usually end up all over the house and not just in their bedrooms.
When I was younger, my mom would have us organize everything on the coffee table and make it look pretty, fluff the couch cushions and pillows, and pick up any loose toys or junk that is in the room. We did this in the living room, T.V. room, and even the dining room! If we didn’t know where something went, we were supposed to ask where it goes and find out or give it to the sibling who it belongs to so that they can put their own stuff away. Doing this helped us get in the habit of always putting our stuff away because then we would’t have to clean up as much later.
Why Is It Important To Teach Your 7-Year-Old How To Do Chores?
Teaching your kid how to do chores, especially at age 7 where they are starting to develop and learn about responsibility, is important for a few reasons. These reasons include future preparation, learning to pull their weight, understanding the importance and worth of a job, responsibility and the importance of keeping them, and the importance of cleanliness.
Teaching your kids to clean prepares them for the future in a couple ways. By knowing how to clean, they have a better opportunity to get a good minimum wage job and not have trouble when their job makes them clean because they will already know how to.
Another future preparation perk of teaching your kids to clean is simply knowing how to clean their own house or apartment when they move out. I have friends that still don’t know how to clean or do their laundry because their parents never made them help with the chores and they just coddled them. Because my mom taught me how to do all of this at a young age, I can be self sufficient and independent and maintain proper and respectable hygiene not only of myself but of my place of residence as well.
Having your kids help clean around the house also teaches the importance of pulling your weight in a community setting. I have been around people time and time again and even had roommates that will just sit and watch as I do all of the chores and make everything clean again after they have destroyed it and not cleaned up after themselves.
No one likes a roommate that just explodes their stuff and projects all over the place and then leaves it for someone else to clean up. Or even in just a general community setting not involving cleaning, no one like that person in a group project that sits and takes credit for all of your beautiful work you did on your own.
Chores can also teach your children the importance of a job done well and the worth of a hard job done. Chores can teach them that you have to work for success and a good job, life, etc.
Another thing chores can teach a kid is responsibility and the importance of keeping up with your responsibilities. When they don’t keep up with their responsibilities, it comes with consequences. By learning this, they learn to be responsible and punctual with their work, no matter what the type of work is.
Lastly, having your kids do chores teaches them the importance of a clean environment and home. When things get cluttered or dirty, it is harder to focus, harder to relax, and much harder to be comfortable. Along with this, if your house is kept clean, you don’t have to worry about cleaning for hours before having guests over only to say “sorry for the mess!” By keeping your place clean you are always ready to have guests over and it is a much happier environment to dwell in.
What about Pay Chores?
Pay chores are, in my opinion, a great thing to enforce. Growing up, my siblings and I had a list of chores we could do for spending money after all of our other chores were done. These chores were all worth different amounts of money depending on how much work they were. Below I will give a list of pay chores that I grew up doing along with how much they were worth.
Pay Chores I Grew Up With:
- Ironing Dad’s Work Shirts – $1-$2 / shirt
- Paint the White Picket Fence – $5 / panel
- Wash a Car – $5-$10 / car
- Clean the Inside of a Car – $5-$10 / car
- Pick Up Rotten Apricots – $5 / bucket
These chores were great money making opportunities for my siblings and me when we were younger.
It was nice to have a way to be taught and learn the responsibility it takes to have a job and even learning the worth of a dollar and spending our money wisely and saving it for something we may have needed or wanted.
Having pay chores especially to help teach me the importance of good money management was a great blessing because it has really helped out with my understanding and knowledge of how to save and manage my money as an adult now. I know people that did not grow up learning this and they struggle with managing their money responsibly and I wish they had the same understanding to help with their financial struggles and help their financial future as well.
Now, I’m not saying that pay chores helped teach me how to be a professional banker and multimillionaire. That is unrealistic, but pay chores helped to teach me what hard work is worth, the importance of responsibly handling obligations especially once you start them, and gave me the knowledge of basic money handling and management. I learned to work hard to make money for the money I wanted or needed to go to the movies with my friends or for the super cute earrings I wanted at Claire’s.
Chores are a great thing to start instituting with your 7-year-old because they are finally old enough for sure to handle such responsibilities and at a great age to start learning these skills. It teaches them a lot that they will need to know for their futures which is an awesome help and a great step towards independence when they start to become an adult.
Related Questions:
What if my 7-year-old can’t handle all of these chores because they are on the younger side? What chores would still be good for them? Some 7-year-olds that are underdeveloped, in whatever way, could still do chores. I would say that some of the chores I listed that they could still do is fold their laundry and the socks, sweep, collect full bathroom trash bags, put away their chores, try to make their bed in the morning, light dusting, disinfect things, and help fluff up the living room and such. These are all chores that don’t involve heavy lifting, are super easy to do, and you won’t have to worry about them breaking anything either.
How often should I have them do chores? My mom had my sisters and I each do 3 small chores every day before she got home from work. These were small things like folding a load of laundry or making our bed or pick up our toys around the house and put them away. It was super easy and simple and it was a great . However, how many and how often you have your kids do chores is ultimately up to you. Having this system worked super well for my family, though, so please feel free to use that if you desire!
