Age-Appropriate Chores for Kids: A Chart by Age (Australia)

With four kids in the house, chores are not optional for us, they are survival. But working out which job to give which kid, without setting them up to fail or handing a five-year-old something they will never manage, took us a while to get right. This is the chart we wish we had at the start.

Skip to the chart if that is all you came for. If you want to know why it is worth the effort, and how to get chores happening without a daily battle, read on.

Why chores are worth the fight

It is tempting to do everything yourself because it is faster. It usually is, in the short term. But the research on chores is unusually clear about the long-term payoff.

A widely cited University of Minnesota study by Marty Rossmann followed 84 children from preschool into their mid-20s. The single best predictor of success as a young adult, measured across education, career, relationships and self-sufficiency, was whether they had done household chores starting at age three or four. Children who started young did better than those who started as teenagers, and far better than those who never had chores at all.

Closer to home, Raising Children Network, the Australian Government’s parenting service, frames it in day-to-day terms: when a child contributes to family life, they feel competent and responsible, and the household runs with less stress because the work is shared. The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry makes the same point, that chores help children learn responsibility and become capable adults.

None of this means piling on the chores. What matters is starting early with jobs that fit the child. That is what pays off for years.

The chore chart by age

Treat this as a guide, not a rulebook. Kids develop at different paces, and you know yours better than any chart does. Move up or down a band as needed.

Age	Chores they can take on
2–3	Put toys in a box, put dirty clothes in the hamper, wipe up small spills, hand you things to pack away
4–5	Make their bed (roughly), feed a pet, set and clear the table, water plants, tidy their room
6–8	Wipe benches, sort laundry into lights and darks, sweep, take out the rubbish, pack their own school bag
9–11	Vacuum, load and unload the dishwasher, make a simple breakfast or lunch, rake leaves, help a younger sibling
12+	Do the washing, clean the bathroom and toilet, do a basic grocery shop, cook a family meal once a week, mow the lawn

The teen jobs in that bottom row line up with what Raising Children Network suggests older kids can own outright: the washing, cleaning the bathroom, stacking the dishwasher, basic grocery shopping, and cooking a simple family meal once a week. By the teens, the goal shifts from helping you do a job to owning it start to finish.

Getting chores to happen

Knowing the right chore is the easy part. Getting it to happen every day without a battle is the hard part. What has worked for us:

• Expect it to be imperfect. A four-year-old’s made bed will look like a four-year-old made it. If you re-do it in front of them, they learn there is no point trying. Let it be good enough.
• Keep it consistent. The same one or two jobs, at the same time each day, become a habit far faster than a rotating roster nobody can remember.
• Make it visible. Kids do better when they can see what is expected and tick it off, rather than holding it in their heads. This is especially true in our house, where a clear, visible list takes the heat out of the reminders.
• Match the job to the kid, not just the age. The chart is a starting point. If a job causes a daily meltdown, it is the wrong job for now, not a character flaw.

Two kinds of chores: responsibilities and paid tasks

This is the question every family lands on eventually. For us the honest answer is that it depends which chore. As we covered in our guide to how much pocket money to pay by age, the cleanest way we have found is to split chores into two kinds:

• Responsibilities are the everyday jobs that are simply part of being in a family: making the bed, feeding the cat, homework. These do not earn extra money. They are what you do because you live here.
• Paid tasks are the bigger, optional jobs a kid can choose to take on to earn: washing the car, raking leaves, helping with the little ones.

That split teaches two lessons at the same time. Helping out is expected, not something you are paid for every time. And going above the baseline is what earns money. In our house it has been the difference between chores getting done and every single request turning into a negotiation.

Enforcing the split without nagging

Holding that line day to day is the hard part. If the everyday responsibilities are unpaid, what stops them being ignored? And if the jobs and the money live in different places, one on the fridge, one in your head, one in a banking app, the two drift apart within a week.

That specific problem is what we built Quiddo to solve, so it handles both sides of the split directly rather than leaving you to enforce it:

• Responsibilities gate the pocket money. You mark the everyday jobs as responsibilities and set how many need to be done. Quiddo holds back the weekly pocket money until enough are ticked off and approved. Miss them, and the money sits pending until you decide to release some of it or hold it back. The lesson that pitching in is simply expected stops being a lecture and becomes how the money actually works.
• Paid tasks pay out on approval. For the bigger optional jobs, you attach a dollar value. When your child marks it done and you approve it, the reward lands straight in their balance and they see it right away. Effort, then reward, with nothing for you to remember to transfer.

The kids get one clear, visible list of what is expected and what is up for grabs. You get the everyday jobs enforced and the paid ones settled automatically, with no debit card in a child’s pocket and no bank sign-up. The responsibilities-versus-paid-tasks split that every family works out on paper, built into the app.