2 Answers
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What's the definition of chores? We - believe it or not - ask our 16 month old to help us clear the dishwasher. She takes her plates and cups out and puts them, one by one, into their cabinet. She does a decent job, sometimes all the dishes in the cabinet come out onto the floor, but sometimes not ;)
Our just turned 3 year old helps us clear the table, and assists with cooking (when we're not pressed for time). Sometimes clearing the table is a condition for a dried apricot (would you believe he thinks that's a dessert?!)
Once, when my son refused to clean up his toys, I cleaned them up and hid them. When he wanted to play with them again the next day I told him that only kids who put away their toys get to play with them. I gave them back on the condition he'd clean them up when he was done. Since then he usually says "oh sure, I'll do it" when we ask if he'll clean up his toys or if he wants us to do it for him.
We haven't asked the kids to do anything on their own, without us telling them to do it, perhaps that's what you mean by chores? I haven't the foggiest about when or how we might start doing that...
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We've been working with our 3yr old on clearing his plate and cup from the table. We had tried this previously (at younger ages) and got varying amounts of success.
Now, he's much more motivated to please us by doing things like this, and is fairly willing to do it if he's not too tired/distracted. Maybe cleaning up after breakfast would be an easier task for him, because he wouldn't be as tired at the end of the day. (On the other hand, mornings are usually a time where we need to get going out of the house, so there's quite a bit of time pressure).
When he does clean off the table (it has to be totally cleaned off, with our help for the big stuff), then he gets to have his normal desert, which is 2 pieces of dried apricot. We make it a lightweight choice for him -- if he doesn't want to clear his plate, then he doesn't get the apricot, and we don't make a big deal about it, encouraging him to go do something else while we clean up.
There have been a couple times where he's complained that he "forgot to eat his apricot" which usually means that he chose not to do his chores, and he needs a bit of help remembering what the tradeoff was.
In contrast, our daughter (16mos) can mimic the cleaning up behavior, taking her sippy cup to the sink, for example, but I don't think she gets the point: There's work to do in the home, and we all need to work together to accomplish it.
Another task that's currently working pretty well with our 3yr old is emptying the dishwasher. His plates, cups, and utensils are all in an area that's easily accessible to him, so we put things on the bottom rack of the dishwasher, and he's able to take them from there and put them away, with a bit of prompting. His younger sister can again mimic the behavior, but then ofter times it turns into "let's put all the plates on the floor" which isn't so great.
