Adolescence and chores.

To require or not require chores, from your adolescent, that is the agonizing question. Whether it is really worthwhile for parents to go through the hassle of forcing household labor from a reluctant teenager, or whether it is better to forego such demands and spare themselves the frustration and irritation of spending so much energy to get unwilling assistance so often carelessly done?

When the teenager was a small child, "Can I help?" was a constant request which parents often refused because of the oversight it required, the extra time it took, the risks it created, and the mess it made. The child's innocent eagerness to participate was based on the perception that helping was a privilege which, if granted, allowed one to do some of the grown up things his or her parents did. Because helping parents felt empowering, it boosted self-esteem.

Then as the child grew older and more able there was personal satisfaction and parental approval to be gained from doing a job well. However, when the child enters adolescence (around ages 9 - 13) what was once considered a privilege becomes an imposition. Now the old question "Can I help?" is replaced with "Do I have to?" "Why should I?" "Can't I do it later?"

A great mistake parents can make is putting off asking household help until the boy or girl is older and more physically competent. So they wait until the early adolescent years to begin these demands, which means that in most cases they have waited too late. Childhood is the age of cooperation; adolescence is the age of resistance. Work the 4-year-old welcomed, the 10-year-old resents. So parents need to teach habits of household assistance in childhood that become so deeply instilled and routinely accepted that by adolescence they are mostly unquestioned.

"The rule of 3-4-5" is how it was explained to me. By age 3 the child should be routinely picking up, putting back, and cleaning up after himself. By age 4 the child should be used to responding to parental requests for personal help. By age 5 the child should be contributing regular tasks to maintain the household.

When a young person gets accustomed to doing chores from early childhood, they can become an accepted fact of adolescent life. So your 14-year-old's friend comes by Saturday morning only to find your son vacuuming the home. "How come you're doing housework on a weekend?" the friend asks. Your son answers: "Because I always have."

Most parents, myself included, tend to put off the regular assigning of chores until adolescence -- too late to get started without a struggle. Now parents run into the adolescent work ethic, which amounts to this: work as hard as you can, as long as you have to, to get out of doing work. This is why a ten-minute chore can take several hours to accomplish.

So the self-respecting adolescent, bent on more independence, offers parental authority more passive opposition in the form of ignoring and delay, and more active opposition in the form of complaining and argument. The result is when it comes to adolescent chores, parents pay the cost for compliance by contending with increased resistance.

So how are parents to deal with an adolescent who is resistant to doing chores? First, and most important, parents must not punish the adolescent for not doing chores right away or at all. Because they feel frustrated and angry, punishment or the threat of punishment comes readily to mind, but they need to resist this emotional temptation.

The reason why not to punish is that such a consequence makes doing chores seem like a matter of choice. "Don't do the chore and you will be punished." So parents attach doing chores to getting allowance, docking money when they are not done. (And for a price, the adolescent gets out of doing the chore.) No. Doing chores, like doing homework, are "no choice" responsibilities. They will be done. To this end parents use supervision and working the exchange points to make sure the work is performed.

Supervision is nagging, the drudge work of parenting, using your insistence to wear down adolescent resistance, repeatedly letting the young person know that you will keep after and after and after them until the chore gets done. So I ask the adolescent why she finally mowed the yard, and her response was: "Because I got tired of my parents hassling me about it!" Of course the adolescent already knows nagging works because of keeping after what you first denied, at last wearing you down, until you finally say: "Oh all right! You can go. Just quit nagging me about it!" Not fun to give or receive, nagging works.

Working the exchange points means moving from automatic to conditional giving. Any time your adolescent wants anything from you, feel free to agree: "I am happy to do what you ask, but before I do, I need to have you finish up that chore for me." Your son or daughter needs to know that cooperation needs to work two ways. Before you do what your adolescent wants, make sure you get what you want (and asked for) first.

Of course, when it comes to getting chores accomplished parental consistency counts. Be inconsistent and you send a double message: "Sometimes I really mean you need to get chores done, and sometimes I don't." Given this mixed message, most adolescents will vote for "don't." Parents who don't insist on chores usually end up feeling resentful for doing too much at home and the teenager not doing enough.

When it comes to the timing of a chore, it can often help to give a choice within a choice. The chore itself is non-negotiable; but you can offer some flexibility about when it is performed. "You work with me on what I want, and I'll work with you on when it gets done." Assuming your adolescent delivers on the schedule agreed, then you have created a working arrangement. And always, always, express appreciation when a chore is finally done.

Are pursuing adolescent chores worth the parental effort? Absolutely yes! The importance of doing chores is that, through regular unpaid household service that young people provide, they help support the maintenance and upkeep of the family system that sustains them, just like parents do. Adolescents learn that in a working family everyone has to pull some share of the load, make some of the effort, and invest in other people's well being, not just preoccupy with their own.

Thus chores have both specific and symbolic value. Specifically, a valued service is provided. Symbolically, a principle of family functioning is affirmed. And psychologically a powerful investment is made; the young person increases sense of citizenship in and ownership of the family through making this regular contribution to its welfare.

For more about parenting adolescents, see my book, "SURVIVING YOUR CHILD'S ADOLESCENCE" (Wiley, 2013.) Information at: www.carlpickhardt.com

Next month's entry: Adolescence and the problem with questions.