Saturday morning, it’s already 11am, and your teenager has just told you for the fourth time this week why they can’t help cook dinner. Is this a problem that they are unable to help with chores? Not necessarily.
Today we are going to talk about chores: how much should your HSC student be helping, and when do household jobs have a negative impact on study?
We will start by looking at why too many chores may not be great, before striking a practical solution about where the balance is, and how you can best help your child.
Ready? Let’s get into it.
What do we mean when we say chores?
Three Reasons to Be Lenient
Where is the line?
First, what are we actually talking about?
Chores are generally considered to be the things we just have to get done around the house and to function. ‘Life admin’, some of us have affectionately termed it.
For the purpose of this article, we are going to be defining chores as anything that is a moderate responsibility and takes some amount of time out of your child’s day. This doesn’t include, for example, just making their bed or taking the bins out.
Three Reasons to Be Lenient
As we are going to discuss, HSC is a stressful time for students. They often need extra time in their day, and to feel like they have autonomy over how they are living. Their relationship with chores can be one small part of that.
Reason #1: Study time
The reality is, your child probably has a lot less free time now than they did several years ago. They are studying for the HSC, while maintaining previous responsibilities like sport and work.
Most students are doing up to twenty four hours of study per week, and more in stressful times. If you are combining seven hours of school with three hours of study, your child is already looking at an 8am-6pm work day — that’s a decent amount.
By giving your child only smaller chores, you let them know that prioritising study is important. You also give them enough space to feel like they are making their own decisions around the topic.
“My parents were very supportive. I had three major works during my HSC and worked very hard. They supported me by helping me with housework, valuing education and waking me up in the morning after long nights.” — Anneke (96.85 ATAR)
As you can see from this comment, we aren’t suggesting giving your child no chores at all. Instead, it’s a great idea to create a balance, where your child knows they must contribute to the house but still have time to complete things like major works to a high-calibre.
Reason #2: Free time
On top of all the study and other commitments, your child still really needs free time. There’s a couple of reasons for this.
First, free time allows teenagers to feel an increased sense of autonomy over their lives. Increased autonomy, especially when navigating changing situations like the HSC, is essential for development as a healthy and responsible adult. In short, less chores means some more free-time, which usually means a healthy teenager.
Free time is also essential for mental health. Students need time to consider their hobbies and devote time to what they enjoy. In fact, research shows that many parents are guilty of over-scheduling their children, which can have negative effects for teenagers.
Reason #3: Show your support
Finally, even if you see no tangible benefits for being lenient on chores, your child will very likely realise that your flexibility is a show of support for them. This is more important than you may realise.
As your child gets older, they aren’t always going to want to be told outright that you love them or support them. Often, your actions will have a bigger impact.
Having a conversation with your child, where you explain why you are going to give them less chores for a little while, will help them to see that you’ve deeply considered their current needs, and are going to make changes in your own life to improve theirs.
“During high school, my parents made allowances for me to study. Time was their gift to me. They didn’t fuss about whether I was using the time wisely — they left it up to me. Study was completely my own responsibility and I took it on board. I used the time and achieved what I set out to.” — Julia (95.15 ATAR)
ReachOut suggests that a huge part of supportive parenting for teens is actively listening to their needs. Additionally, it’s setting clear expectations and consequences that they can feel secure in. Having a conversation about decreased chores does both these things well.
Where is the line?
You may be shaking your head at what you’ve just read, and understandably. There are huge risks for parents in decreasing the domestic responsibility of their child.
Will they have all the skills they need when they move out? Will they realise how hard parents work for them? Do you look bad to other parents?
This article is not to suggest that your child should have no chores. In fact, continuing the routine of having your child complete their chores is a great way to normalise what can otherwise be a stressful experience.
Put simply, giving your child no chores and making free passes for everything can make the HSC seem like a much bigger and scarier thing than it is. So what’s the answer?
It’s important to be flexible on this. Continue to give your child some chores, give them some level of responsibility, but realise that they may not be functioning at their highest capacity around the house and will need compromises. This builds on what we discussed previously, about having a conversation with your child and showing support.
There are several things to consider when making the decision of how many chores to give.
#1: Consider other responsibilities
Does your child have a part-time job or play a lot of sports? If this is the case, their time out of school has already rapidly decreased. This list is specifically about teen jobs, but it can be related to chores.
You will need to consider if giving a lot of chores dramatically decreases your child’s free time, especially if they are already limited.
There is evidence to suggest that a universal decline in free play, even in older children, can mean kids are limited in learning self-control, solving problems and following rules based on their own initiative. That’s a pretty serious claim and one that’s good to consider when loading your child with chores.
#2: What’s on at school
The reasons above can also be applied when you are considering what your child has on at school. Do they have some big assignments or extra-curricular things coming up? These are the times when flexibility is key!
This can be particularly useful if your child is in an important study week and doesn’t want big interruptions.
“My parents were supportive to the extent that they did not ask me to perform any serious chores around the house to distract me from studying.” — Franca (85 ATAR)
#3: Your family dynamic
A final thing to consider when evaluating what chores to give your child is what kind of parenting approach you already take.
If you are a fairly passive parent or highly value your child making their own decisions, you may not give them mandated chores in the same way an authoritative parent would. There isn’t anything innately wrong with either style of parenting — instead, it is about creating normalcy for your child during their HSC year.
There you have it!
Now that you know the benefits of being lenient on your child doing chores (and how to work out this boundary), it’s time to have a conversation with them about it!
Remember that the outcome is going to be different for every family. You may not hit the sweet sport the first time, and that’s okay! Keep working with your child to achieve the best outcome for both of you.
Looking for more educational resources? Check out some of our other articles below:
- The Ultimate Guide to Helping Your Child Stay Motivated for the HSC
- Why Study Breaks are Critical to Helping Your Child Maintain Their Wellbeing During the HSC
- The Ultimate Study Skills Handbook: How To Help Your Child Get Organised For The HSC
- Negative Self Talk: 3 Ways to Respond to Your Child’s Inner Critic
- How to Help Your Child Reduce Digital Distractions to Stop Procrastinating and Start Studying!
Are you looking for some extra help for your child during the HSC?
We have an incredible team of HSC tutors and mentors!
We can help your child master their HSC subjects and ace their upcoming HSC assessments with personalised lessons conducted one-on-one in your home or at one of our state of the art campuses in Hornsby or the Hills!
We’ve supported over 8,000 students over the last 11 years, and on average our students score mark improvements of over 20%!
To find out more and get started with an inspirational HSC tutor and mentor, get in touch today or give us a ring on 1300 267 888!
Lucinda Garbutt-Young hopes to one day be writing for a big-shot newspaper… or maybe just for a friendly magazine in the arts sector. Right now, she is enjoying studying a Bachelor of Public Communication (Public Relations and Journalism) at UTS while she writes on the side. She also loves making coffees for people in her job as a barista, and loves nothing more than a sun shower.
