This is a subject that is the cause of innumerable battles between parents and children. Many parents I have seen are in a battle of wills with their children over getting the children to do their chores. Parental attitudes enter into this problem and can be a major cause of the dissension.

The main parental attitude that seems to be present in almost all cases is the child should be responsible for doing his chores. Parents want their children to have a feeling of responsibility about things they should do as members of the family and should swing their own weight in the house. The children don't see it that way at all.

Generally, parents try to order, force, coerce, demand, nag, remind, fuss, and make a nuisance of themselves to get the children to do their chores. Seldom does this work, however. All these methods will provide results opposite those which are desired. The chapter on responsibility asserts that to teach a child to become a responsible person, you must give that child all the choices he is capable of making and the full consequences of those choices. If you remind him to do his chores, you are accepting the responsibility. This may get the chores done, but it won't contribute to the child's sense of responsibility. It will teach him to avoid you as a way of avoiding the chores.

How to teach a child to do his chores? Well, of course the best way is to begin when the child is still small--creating an atmosphere in which it is natural that everyone contributes to the work of keeping the family going. In this atmosphere it is taken for granted that everyone in the family works together, doing whatever needs to be done.

Actually, children start out wanting to do chores. Little boys tend to want to use the lawnmower long before they are big and strong enough to operate it. Small children often want to help with the dishes. In the classroom, they will pitch in with a will to straighten up, arrange books on the shelves, clean the chalkboard, and so forth.

This enthusiasm for work can be stifled in several ways. One is for the adult in charge to be so picky about how the job is done that he, or she, loses patience and takes over in order to get it done faster and better. This is an example of losing perspective on just what is important. Another is to expect the child to take over the whole chore to the extent that it becomes an odious burden. My wife and I made both of these mistakes many times over when our children were small. I can cite two instances.

First, when our daughter was about five, she started begging to help with the dishes. We fixed her up with a step-stool so she could reach the sink, and stood by to rinse and dry and generally offer support. She thoroughly enjoyed it. We were rewarding her with our attention and company for doing the dishes. It may have slowed down the process of getting the dishes done, but several other things were gained that were more important. She was learning how to do things and we were sharing things as a family. Then after several months we moved to a new house of our own, and fearing she would chip the brand new sink, we stopped letting her help with the dishes. Since then we have known that was a mistake. The sink eventually got chipped anyhow, and we took away from her an experience she enjoyed and one which would have made her feel more a part of the new home.

A second instance is that of our son, who wanted to mow the lawn. When he was finally old enough to operate the mower, I taught him how to use it and turned him loose. The trouble was all too soon we let it become his job, and as he grew older we began expecting him to do the entire yard. He didn't get the sharing and attention from us that would have made the activity rewarding for him. It wasn't a large yard, but with the mowing, edging, and clipping, it was a fairly big job--and one that became odious to him.

I know now what we should have done was to share the yard work as a family. Again, our sharing and attention would have been good rewards for doing yard work and it could have been a more enjoyable job. If we had all worked on it together, it could have been a satisfying shared experience. Instead we made it a hateful chore, and to this day our son dislikes yard work. He has solved this problem by living in an apartment where someone else does it for him. But one day he may want to buy a house of his own and a yard will probably come with it.

However, as I was saying, if you begin early, it is possible to build an atmosphere of shared effort. Let it be taken for granted that everyone in the family has useful work to do. Some may involve each member cleaning up after himself, like picking up his own clothes and either putting them away or putting them in the clothes hamper. It could be leaving the bathtub or wash basin in decent condition for the next user, or straightening his own bed in the morning. He could learn the responsibilities of picking up his own toys or mess after playing, and maybe even carrying his own dishes from the table to the kitchen if that is deemed helpful in the existing routine.

Other chores could be shared. There is something about the sharing and companionship that is rewarding and which can be associated with doing these kinds of chores. It won't work if you just order the child to do the job because it is required of him. The sharing aspect of getting chores done can be the most important reward and can help keep the work activities from seeming like work.

Even the smallest child can be made a part of the family's work; a tiny baby can lie by his mother while she folds clothes and talks or sings to him while she works. A small child can be given some way to help while Mother or Father or an older sibling is working, where perfection and speed are not necessary. Compliment the child when he finishes a chore--even just a word or two; let him feel he has done a good thing.

Have a minor celebration when shared work projects are finished, even it it's only sitting down together to share a cold pitcher of lemonade. You can transmit the sense of satisfaction gained from the accomplishment of a job of work. A celebration like this makes an excellent reward for getting the work done. It also communicates the message that work need not always be an odious task.

Now, what if it's too late for all that and you have on your hands a child who hates doing his chores? We are back to where we started at the beginning of this chapter. How do we teach the child to be responsible for his chores without a knock-down, drag-out fight every time the subject comes up? It still looks like a job for common-sense behavior modification.

First, you need to establish in your own mind what chores you feel your child should make his responsibility. Be sure they are appropriate to his age and ability; you don't want to run the risk of injury or him getting a sense of failure. Then, put yourself in his shoes. Do not make the chore or regimen of chores an intolerable burden. At the same time, your child needs to learn life involves doing a certain number of things he doesn't want to do. He will grow up to be a happier and more effective person if he can also learn to get those things done with a minimum of fuss so he can get on with all the things he does want to do. Some of us never learn that. It is important that he actually does get to do some of the things he wants to do after getting the work done.

In trying to teach your child to accept his responsibilities, once you have decided what they are, you can bring into play the principles of reward and of the consequences of behavior. If you are having to begin a whole new program, teaching your child from scratch, it might help to sit down with him in a family conference and talk it over with him. Let him know what you are trying to accomplish and why you feel it is necessary. Let him know what's in it for him.

Now at this point let me say I am opposed to paying a child cash money for doing his chores. You are trying to teach him a sense of responsibility, one that comes from within, not a sense of greed. Also, no one is going to pay him for making his bed or picking up his underwear when he goes out on his own.

Getting back to the conference, you might make it a family project, doing the kinds of things I mentioned earlier. Instead of telling him he has to straighten out and what all he needs to do, discuss how you are all going to work together. Then discuss what each member will do differently from the way things have been done. That will include what he needs to do as his part.

Here I need to give you a warning. The older the child, the smaller the chance your family conference will get results. A young child, still valuing attention from significant adults, may enter in with enthusiasm, whereas a rebellious teenager is likely to perceive everything as a lecture and tune the whole thing out. Still, you can but try.

That said, let's continue with some ways to do this thing you're trying to do. Even with the family-project approach, you may not get completely satisfactory results. Or, for various reasons you may not want to use that approach. We'll look at other alternatives.

Let's say your child is a general mess and refuses to help around the house at all. Should you go slowly and carefully, or should you decide "I'm going to see to it this kid shapes up and does all the things he is supposed to be doing?" Well, there is a basic principle involved when you are trying to teach someone to do something.

The basic principle is always fix it so the person can succeed easily and be rewarded for succeeding; then gradually add to the difficulty or the amount, always ensuring success followed by reward. If you follow this basic principle, it seems fairly certain you will have to go easy at first. You may have to begin with one chore--or in a stubborn case, one portion of one chore--and work up.

Along with this basic principle of teaching go Rules 1 and 7 in the principles of behavior modification. Remember Rule 1? If you want your child to do something more often, find the consequences that reward the behavior and increase them, or provide some rewarding consequences yourself. Rule 7 states if the desired behavior never occurs, then reward behaviors that are similar or that can lead to the desired behavior.

Using these principles, let's pick out a chore you would like to teach your child to do. Let's say you want him to keep his room neat--not clean, mind you. That's a whole other subject. Just neat. But looking at his room you decide "neat" is the impossible dream. Well then, let's take it a segment at a time. Let's work on getting him to where he keeps his clothes picked up and put in the appropriate places.

Taking another look at his room, you realize "clothing" is still a pretty big category. All right, let's decide which bugs you the most--shirts draped over the furniture? Shoes scattered over the floor? Socks strewn everywhere? Maybe you decide on socks. That's probably a good choice; since they are out of their drawer and strewn around the room, they probably have been worn and are ready for the clothes hamper. That should be fairly uncomplicated and an easy thing for your child to handle. To make it even easier and to forestall arguments about having to go all the way to the laundry room or wherever the hamper is located you might even get him a hamper of his own and put it in his closet.

All right, you've established your first goal; to get your child to pick up his dirty socks and put them in the hamper. Now how do you do it? You have already put your basic teaching principle into effect. You have chosen a task at which your child can succeed easily. Next you have to decide on the reward. Later of course, you will add to your requirements, always ensuring success followed by reward.

If he has been picking up his socks every now and then, find or devise consequences to reward that behavior and increase it. If he has never picked up his socks in his life, maybe it's because he's never been told to. You might try that first, rewarding him with a warm thank you when he does it.

Your attention and company (provided this is a pre-teen you are working with) will be a great reward for doing this activity. You need to make the activity as much pleasure or fun as you can. For example, maybe you could inform your child nothing but socks are to be picked up this time. If he touches anything else you could make an exaggerated response saying he is not to touch any other mess. This could be made into a game where getting the socks picked up involves a lot of fun.

As this progresses, you could continue rewarding him whenever you find the socks picked up or at least not on the floor. In this as in all projects like this it is important to prevent the job from seeming overwhelming. A room that is a thorough mess is an overwhelming task when seen as an overall thing. Just seeing socks, or whatever, is a much less staggering proposition.

I know you say this is a lot of work just to get his socks picked up. You could certainly pick them up yourself a lot quicker and easier. I'm afraid this is what most parents do most of the time. It's almost always easier to do the job yourself than it is to get the kids to do it. The important thing to remember here is what the job really is. You are trying to teach your child something that will serve him well in the world he is about to enter as an independent adult someday. It will be a lot of extra work just to get socks picked up, but it will be much easier for him to learn to be a neat, responsible adult by your going to this extra trouble.

Anyway, we proceed with these principles, trying to make jobs such as picking up socks, cleaning rooms, and other responsible things as rewarding as possible. It's probably not very rewarding just to do the work. The reward needs to come from a larger context where the child gets a good feeling from having a clean room, and his parent's approval. There is a lot to be said for approval as a reward.

In the end the desired goal is for the clean room to be rewarding enough for him to keep it clean without needing external rewards. The internal rewards are what really count in overall behavior, but they come about mainly by having activities paired with rewarding consequences. Hopefully, by association, the activities will eventually become rewarding by themselves.

If you are trying to get a teenager to do these kinds of things, the rules will be different. At about the onset of adolescence, the things that are rewarding to the child change. No longer will you find the attention of a parent is a reward. Even though it may be rewarding to the adolescent, he probably won't admit it. The attention and approval of peers seems to be the most important thing at that stage of life. Since you probably won't get results by making a game of cleaning up the room, you will need to find something that is rewarding to the child.

When a child reaches adolescence, he is able to understand the rules, even though he often won't follow them. A way of getting the room clean under these circumstances will be to explain the rules you have devised. For example, a rule could be the family car cannot be used if the room in question is not clean. It is also very important in this case to define very clearly what is meant by "clean." Not only can the definition of "clean" change according to the parent's mood, but the child can easily find an arguing point to avoid something.

It is important to understand you will be tested to see if you really mean it about the rules. Consistency is absolutely necessary in applying the rules. Don't be tempted to change things "just this once." Also, let the responsibility of remembering the rules rest with the child. Don't keep reminding him the room isn't clean yet and Saturday night is almost here. Using the car isn't the important thing. Learning to be a responsible person and keeping a clean room seems to be a higher priority for your child to live a productive and responsible life.

The examples I have given are just that--examples. Don't think I am concerned with whether there are socks littered about the place or that your teenager should be using the family car. Use these examples as learning tools, and devise your own chores and strategies for getting them accomplished. Remember all the while the main job is to help the child learn skills to be able to live a good life.

In fact, when you are feeling frustrated you may need to keep reminding yourself of this. Is your object getting work done around the house, or raising a responsible child? If you are just trying to get the work done, it would certainly be easier and might be cheaper to hire someone to do it. This is especially true considering how many dishes Johnny and Janey "accidentally" break while resentfully doing kitchen duty. It should help you to remember all this aggravation is for the purpose of achieving your very worthwhile long-range goal. Keeping the chores done is nice, but not as important as the future of your child.

I think it might be okay to be a little sneaky to help your child to be motivated to do the work. I remember when my son was a pre-teen I felt it would be good for him to be enterprising and learn to work to make money for himself. He started a lawn care business where he mowed the neighbor's lawns for pay. At that time my son wasn't very far-sighted. If he had a little money in his pocket he was content.

I could see his motivation to work was directly connected to whether he was short of money or not. Being a bit sneaky, I decided to help him spend his money when he started getting complacent. He was easily influenced to do this because he liked to spend money. I would do such things as invite him to go for a hamburger with me--Dutch treat, of course. He always went and usually had an ice cream cone for dessert. He spent his money and was soon interested in getting his business going again. Not only that, but I think we spent some quality time over hamburgers. To this day, my son doesn't know how I maneuvered him into this. He will probably want to have a little talk with me when he reads this book.