Age-Appropriate Chores for Kids: The Complete Guide
By the ChoreTown Team · Published July 17, 2026
Household chore ideas for ages 3 to 5, 6 to 9, 10 to 12, and 13 plus, drawn from the same age-banded chore library families use inside ChoreTown, with practical tips for making them stick at every stage.
What makes a chore age appropriate?
A chore is age appropriate when a child can complete it safely and mostly on their own, given their current experience, and when it visibly helps the household. The right chore depends more on what a child has practiced than on their birthday, so the age ranges in this guide are flexible starting points rather than developmental rules.
These suggestions are practical starting points, not developmental or medical guidance. Children differ in experience, ability and comfort, and every household has different safety considerations. Demonstrate unfamiliar tasks, provide supervision where needed and adjust or skip any chore that is not appropriate for your child or home.
How to use this guide
Each age section below has two parts: a list of household chore ideas, taken directly from ChoreTown's built-in template library, and a few tips for that stage. Start in your child's age band, then look one band down if a chore feels like a stretch, or one band up if they are ready for more. Older kids can of course keep any of the earlier chores. Personal routines like brushing teeth and homework are listed separately near the end, because they serve a different purpose than household chores.
How to pick the right chores
When a chore system is not working, the task may not match the child's current experience or the support available. Chores that are too hard can turn into battles, and chores that are too easy can feel like busywork. A useful test: can the child complete this on their own, or nearly on their own, in a way that visibly helps the family?
For many families, starting with one or two repeatable chores is easier to maintain than introducing a long list all at once. That focus on repeatable, sustainable effort is the idea ChoreTown is built around, and you can read the research it draws on at our science page.
A note on safety and supervision
Any chore involving tools, appliances, cleaning products, hot water or cooking, animals, outdoor work, or areas near a street deserves a walkthrough first: demonstrate the task, do it together until you are comfortable, and decide what still needs an adult present. Store cleaning chemicals out of reach of younger children, supervise food preparation and anything with blades or heat, and set clear boundaries for outdoor chores like taking out bins where traffic is a factor. You are the best judge of what is safe in your home.
About the star values
Each chore below shows a suggested star value from ChoreTown's templates, ranging from 2 for quick daily tasks to 12 for big jobs like mowing the lawn. Stars are the points kids earn and spend on rewards inside ChoreTown. The suggestions are only defaults for weighting effort: every family can set any chore's value to whatever fits their own system.
Ages 3 to 5: first jobs, done together
Ages 3–5
At this age the point is participation, not polish. Many preschoolers enjoy being included when the task feels manageable and shared, so the win is letting them own a simple, repeatable job or two and celebrating the attempt. Expect to do the chore alongside them at first, and let "done" mean their version of done. Much of a preschooler's day is really personal routine rather than household chores; see the personal routines section below for those.
Household chore ideas for ages 3–5
- Make the bed
- Tidy up toys
- Keeping it to a few tiny daily jobs helps the routine stay light.
- Attaching chores to moments they already know, like after breakfast or before bed, can make them easier to remember.
- Praise the showing up, not the quality. The habit is the achievement.
Ages 6 to 9: real jobs, real ownership
Ages 6–9
Many elementary-age kids can own simple daily chores end to end: parts of their own space, the family pet, parts of mealtime. A visible tracker can start to matter here too, because some children respond well to seeing their own progress instead of relying entirely on repeated reminders.
Household chore ideas for ages 6–9
- Set the table
- Clear the table
- Take out recycling
- Put away clean laundry
- Tidy bedroom
- Tidy the living room
- Feed the pet
- Fresh water for pet
- Water the plants
- Water the garden
- Bring in the bins
- Tidy up before bed
- Giving each child their OWN list rather than one shared family list keeps ownership unambiguous.
- A mix of personal-space jobs (make the bed) and family-helping jobs (set the table) covers both kinds of responsibility.
- For many families, a weekly goal of showing up most days is more sustainable than expecting a perfect week.
Ages 10 to 12: responsibility with trust
Ages 10–12
Many tweens can handle multi-step chores like dishes, vacuuming, and trash duty, and they tend to notice whether you trust them. This can be a good age to loosen oversight on chores they have shown they can handle while keeping a check-in on newer ones, and to introduce shared jobs anyone in the family can claim.
Household chore ideas for ages 10–12
- Load the dishwasher
- Unload the dishwasher
- Wipe the counters
- Take out the trash
- Vacuum bedroom
- Walk the dog
- Scoop litter box
- Rake the leaves
- Tidy own dishes
- Consider moving well-practiced chores to the honor system while keeping approval for new or important ones.
- Shared up-for-grabs jobs with a small bonus reward initiative, not just compliance.
- Giving children some choice in which chores are theirs may reduce resistance and make reminders feel less one-sided.
Ages 13 and up: life skills, not chore charts
Ages 13+
For teenagers, useful chores are often the ones they will need when living independently: preparing their own food, laundry start to finish, yard work, bigger cleaning jobs. The framing matters as much as the checklist. These are skills being handed over, not tasks being assigned.
Household chore ideas for ages 13+
- Make own lunch
- Change bed sheets
- Mow the lawn
- Wash the car
A teen list is also the natural home for any of the 10 to 12 jobs done fully independently: dishes start to finish, trash and recycling on the right days, vacuuming, walking the dog, or scooping the litter box, all of which are in the tween list above.
- Whole responsibilities (own laundry, one family dinner a week) tend to teach more than fragments.
- As teenagers demonstrate that they can manage a responsibility, some families gradually reduce check-ins.
- When a habit is automatic, consider retiring it from tracking. The goal is not needing the chart.
Chores or personal routines?
Household chores help the whole home run: someone benefits besides the child doing them. Personal routines, like brushing teeth, homework, or laying out tomorrow's clothes, help a child manage their own day. Both build responsibility and both are worth tracking, but many families find it useful to keep them mentally separate, so a child learns that contributing to the family is its own thing, not just another item of self-care. ChoreTown's template library includes both kinds; here are its personal-routine ideas by age.
Personal routine ideas for ages 3–5
- Brush teeth
- Get dressed
- Eat breakfast
- Pajamas on
- Be kind today
Personal routine ideas for ages 6–9
- Pack school bag
- Comb hair
- Do homework
- Read for 20 minutes
- Practice instrument
- Lay out clothes
- Drink water
- Get some exercise
Personal routine ideas for ages 10–12
- Pack for tomorrow
- Screens away
Making it stick, at any age
Whatever ages your kids are, a few practices help most families. Make the list visible where the family actually lives, not on a paper chart that migrates to a drawer. Recognize repeated effort, not just single completions, since acknowledging consistency can help a routine feel more established over time. Keep each child's goals personal instead of pitting siblings against each other. And plan for graduation: when a chore has become automatic, you can stop tracking it and hand the trust over.
If you want all of that handled for you, ChoreTown sets up these exact age-banded chores in a few taps: kids check off their own work on a shared family board, earn stars and streaks, and grow a little town that makes their consistency visible.
How this guide was created
The chore and routine lists on this page are generated directly from ChoreTown's built-in, age-banded chore template library, the same one families use inside the app, so the guide always matches the product exactly. The surrounding guidance was written by the ChoreTown team based on common family practice and the habit research summarized on our science page. It reflects practical experience, not professional, medical or developmental advice.
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