Those in the know say kids who do regular chores are more successful as adults.
While some parents feel guilty making their kids do their daily chores, experts say it can actually have a positive effect on their success later on in life.
Here’s the thing: Chores are something that all adults have to do. It’s not something all adults WANT to do necessarily, but they have to get done nonetheless. So when you teach kids the importance of washing dishes and the like at a young age, they’re more likely to develop a deeper set of understanding in adulthood. At least, that’s what expert Julie Lythcott-Haims, former dean of freshmen at Stanford University and author of How to Raise an Adult, tells us.
In a Ted Talk, she said, “By making them do chores they realize I have to do the work of life in order to be part of life. If kids aren’t doing the dishes, it means someone else is doing that for them. And so they’re absolved of not only the work, but of learning that work has to be done and that each one of us must contribute for the betterment of the whole.”
She also says that children who grow up doing chores actually become better employees once they establish a career. And she’s not the first one to call out this fact.
Marty Rossmann of the University of Mississippi used data collected over 25 years to see whether chores done when a child is 3 or 4 could affect them positively when they were in their 20s. The answer? A resounding yes.
She found they were more likely to have successful careers as well as relationships.