Are your children on the pay roll?

Should children be paid for household chores or should they be expected to help out as part of a family, without reward?

WHEN I was employed full time outside the home, I used to say I only worked to pay someone to do the ironing. I was only half joking. Any semblance of domestic organisation came thanks to my childminder-cum-ironer.

Now that I've left the office job, to juggle part-time paid work from home and caring for the children, the over-flowing basket of crumpled washing is like a self-renewing monument to the challenges of domesticity.

My sons have almost grown out of the items at the bottom because occasional bursts of ironing make little impression on the mound, and there's always more coming out of the washing machine.

Clothes are treated strictly on a "need-to-iron" basis, usually two minutes before they're due to be worn.

So the day my nine-year-old son wanted to have a go, I could not hand the iron over fast enough. He and I were equally delighted to find out that, after a little tuition, doing his father's shirts was not beyond him.

It was a proud mother moment when he went down the other morning before breakfast to provide my husband with a relatively wrinkle-free shirt as he went out the door to work. (A bad mother moment when I saw the burn mark on my son's arm, but I'm sure he'll be more careful about the way he leans over the iron in future!)

The only problem is that, in a moment of weakness, I let my son strike a "piece" rate for ironing. Ten cent for a T-shirt, 20 cent for trousers, 30 cent for those shirts. Should I really be paying one of the family for household chores?

The manager of Parentline, Rita O'Reilly, doesn't think so. Personally, she's against children being paid for jobs around the house. They need to learn that everyone mucks in.

She doesn't like the idea of pocket money being conditional on certain chores being done each week either. If, for some reason, the jobs aren't all done, it can be hard to follow through and withhold the money.

She believes it is better to teach children to help out of respect for their home environment and for the people they live with. "If you link it with money, they'll only do the jobs when they want to."

O'Reilly acknowledges that parents who are very motivated by money are more likely to offer financial rewards for effort. However, she says, chores are about teaching life skills and you don't want children to become obsessed with money at an early age.

Certain chores have to be done every day, such as tidying toys away, laying the table, and loading the dishwasher or doing the washing up. Children should be helping out with these from an early age.

Of course they love to pitch in at the age of two or three when they are often more of a hindrance. By the time they are old enough to be really useful around the house, they don't want to do it any more.

But you need to start them early. So praise your two year old's dusting skills; beam at your four year old when she shows you the smeared window she's just "cleaned" - and do make sure they don't catch you doing it all over again. Look on it as an investment in the future.

With children aged six to 10, a job may need to be broken down into small steps. Just telling them to "tidy the room" is too vague, as they can't see what should be done.

Asking them to pick up the DVDs, put the books back on the shelf, bring the newspapers out to the green bin, etc makes sense to them.

"Identify jobs that are appropriate to your household, appropriate to the child and appropriate to you," advises O'Reilly. "Try to make it enjoyable too."

Like all parenting issues, it's best to decide what works best for your family. If you and your partner are domestically challenged, you are unlikely to raise meticulously tidy children. That doesn't mean they shouldn't help out.

But if order and cleanliness are high on your agenda, then a more structured approach, with chore lists and rotas, may work for you.

The question of what chores, if any, children are required to do and whether they should be paid for them are decisions only families can make for themselves, suggests John Sharry, director of Parents Plus and author of Positive Parenting(Veritas). Setting up rules, so everybody knows what is expected, can be helpful.

"It is important children do chores around the house and that they pull their weight," says Sharry, who is not opposed to children being materially rewarded.

"Parents give their children loads of things," he says, "and there is no harm in making some of these dependent on chores."

However, rewards should be given only when parents decide. "If a child comes and says 'I cleared up my room, can I have €10 now?" The answer is 'no you can't because you asked me'."

The mistake many families make is setting too big a consequence for children if they don't do what they're asked. Threatening to hold part of the pocket money back is something you could carry through, Sharry suggests, rather than shouting in a moment of anger: "If you don't do that, you're not going on holiday.

"The key is never take all the reward away. Be clever about it," he adds.

Michael Grose, author of One Step Ahead: Parenting 3-12 year olds(Newleaf), is adamant children should not receive payment for chores and he also says pocket money should not be dependent on the performance of chores.

"When you offer incentives for the performance of jobs around the house, you are not showing much respect for your children," he writes. "The message is clear: 'I don't think that you can do this job willingly so I'll pay you.' Children come to expect payment for chores as their right."

Most parents consulted for this article don't have quite such a black and white view. There are some things they'll expect their children to do, others they may pay for.

Ingrid Fives, mother of eight-year-old Alexander, seven-year-old Daniel and two-year-old Thomas, says the older children will make their beds, help clear the table and care for their pet rabbits as a matter of daily routine. "It might take a bit of nagging."

But over this summer, she has found the "bob-a-job" approach worked well with other chores. "I don't go over board with the money, it's pretty minimal: maybe 50 cent or so.

"They have cleaned the windows, washed and hoovered the car, and really enjoyed it," she says. "It has given them a real sense of achievement."

When they're stuck inside at home in Killiney, Co Dublin, and start squabbling, Fives has found that setting them separate tasks can be the answer.

Conscious that perhaps the boys have not been asked to do enough up to now, she is planning to be more organised about chores in future and use reward charts.

Louise Taylor*, whose three children are aged 20, 18 and 16, says the key is to assign chores according to a child's preferences and abilities - and regularly reassess this as they grow. "Keep it age appropriate and if it's not working, change the rules," she says.

"We never paid for ordinary chores. We took the view that they were all members of this family and it took five people to contribute."

However, as teenagers, she would give them money for occasional jobs of work that she might pay someone else to do, such as a huge load of ironing or cutting the grass.

For younger children, Taylor says, it's important that if you ask a child to do something, you have to let them do it and not stand over them.

"It won't be done to an adult standard but that's okay. It's sometimes a matter of being incredibly patient. If you step in, they won't do it."

She found that having a list of chores on the fridge from which the children could choose one or two, and tick them off when they were done, was most effective.

Jill Holtz of Galway, co-founder of local listings website mykidstime.ie, involves her two young daughters in simple household work.

Six-year-old Blythe does a bit of tidying, helps wash the car and enjoys hoovering, while three-year-old Fern just loves dusting.

"When I was a child, at about eight to 10, I had to-do a list of chores before I got my pocket money," she recalls. But she's not sure about that approach for her children. "We are a bit softer than my mum's generation."

* Name has been changed

Do you think children should be paid to do household chores? And if so, from what age should they be asked to do them and how much should they be paid?

[ healthsupplement@irish-times.ie ]