Teaching Responsibility

Our children at that age would set the table, take out the garbage, wash the breakfest dishes by hand, put their clothes in their chest of drawers, and feed and water the dog. They would wash the vegetables for dinner.

I have a son who turned 6 in March. Here are some things that he does that I feel have helped teach him responsibility. This is a typical school day:

-Wakes himself up in the morning (he's a morning person) and picks out his own clothes
-Gets dressed
-Let the dogs outside
-Puts clothes in the hamper
-Puts dishes in sink after breakfast
-Puts water bottle in backpack for school
-Checks to see if the cat needs food and feeds cat if needed
-After school he gets his folder out for me to see
-Puts away toys after playing
-Puts dishes in sink after dinner
-Gets pajamas and puts them on
-Puts clothes in hamper
-Puts clothes in drawer after I fold laundry

These are daily things that I generally don't have to remind him to do. He seems to take pride in doing a good job with these. He also helps with other things, like helping me cook and clean, but the ones I listed are daily repeated tasks. I hope this helps. :-)

Our son will be 4 in a few weeks, and we've already started to assign jobs to him.

He's always been a great helper, especially when his sister was born (21 month age difference), and they have daily jobs assigned in his class at day care, so when he came home really excited about being the "Botanist", the "Sanitization Engineer" :), the "Zookeeper", the "Lineleader", we asked him what he wanted at home.

He is responsible for making sure the cat and dog have food/water (we end-up doing it most nights), for putting his clothes in the laundry room, and for picking-out his clothes for the next day. He's always been responsible for putting his toys away (or at least helping to).

As he gets older, we'll work with him on identifying more things he can help with to continue to increase responsibility levels and independence.

A few suggestions..
setting and clearing the table
cleaning his room (dirty clothes in hamper, toys put away)
if you have a pet, feeding it
helping with yard work, watering gardens

When I turned 6 I got a step stool so I could wash dishes-- I still have it and use it frequently (I am short, lol!) 6 year olds can do lots of things, and should, IMHO. He can make his bed, sort his laundry into the hampers, clear his plates from the table, set the table at dinner, do dishes (with instruction--good togetherness time!), feed the pets, sweep the floors, pack his backpack for the next day, lay out his clothes. Obviously, it probably makes more sense for him to do more on weekends and during the summer than on school days-- maybe he can even earn some money doing some small chores over the summer? Kids that age can weed in the yard/garden, fold some easy laundry (like socks-- maybe a penny a sock pair?),etc. Enjoy it now while they still think chores are fun! ;-)

we had my son start by emptying the small garbages-living room and bathroom. putting in a new bag and bringing the full ones to the kitchen to be put with the other garbage. you can also have him help fold the laudry and put away his own clothes(maybe jsut socks and underwear).