Money Saving Mom®

With my youngest turning 4 soon, we are deep in the “I want to help!” phase — the one where help sometimes means more mess and more time. Encouraging chores for 4-year-olds can require a whole lot of patience on your part.

I know. It’s so much easier to just do it yourself.

But here’s what six kids have taught me: it’s totally worth the mess, the time, and the patience. The 4-year-olds who I struggled through chores with became teens who know how to run a household. My older three can cook real meals, do their own laundry, and clean a bathroom. That didn’t happen by accident — it happened because we started young, even when it was slow and imperfect and occasionally resulted in a bigger mess than we started with.

So yes, teaching a 4-year-old to do chores is harder in the beginning. Worth it? Completely.

One more thing before we get to the list — if your child has special needs, this will look different but don’t count them out. My son David has a disability that doctors thought would keep him from even sitting up on his own. He now stands on a chair every morning to help my husband Jesse make coffee. He knows every single step — grinding the beans, tamping them down, brewing, frothing the milk — and if you skip a step or do it out of order, he will absolutely let you know. (See this video for more.)

Kids can contribute in their own ways, and they just might surprise you.

Chore Ideas for 4-Year-Olds: 3 Important Things to Remember

1. Children Need to Know What You Expect of Them

If you don’t show your children how to do a job well, you can’t expect them to know how to do it right. Before asking them to do a chore on their own, work alongside them a few times showing them specifically how to do it.

2. Don’t Expect Them To Do It Well — Especially At First

It often takes a lot of repetitive teaching, gentle correcting, and practice before a child can do a job well. Don’t expect perfection — especially when they are young. What matters is that they are putting forth effort and trying their best.

3. Praise 10 Times As Much As You Correct

It’s easy to want to focus on pointing out all the things a child does wrong and where they need to improve. Instead of dwelling on what they didn’t do right, focus most of your energies on praising those things they did well. Encouragement and affirmation go a very long way!

15 Chores for 4 Year Olds

Children at this age are probably able to dress themselves, brush their teeth, and comb their hair. If they aren’t doing these things on their own, I’d encourage you to start by teaching them those chores.

Here are 15 chores that work well for 4-year-olds (and honestly, a lot of other ages too):

1. Pick Up Their Room — Make sure you show your child exactly what a clean room looks like. And if their room is really messy, I’d suggest working with them to clean it and giving them one specific project to work on at a time. Young children are often still learning the concept of staying on task, so you want to make sure you don’t overwhelm them by giving them too large of a task to accomplish than they are ready to tackle.

2. Vacuum — If you have a vacuum with an attachment or a lightweight vacuum like this one, they can use the attachments on furniture or small areas in your home. My 4-year-olds have been able to vacuum one room, with a little help from me.

3. Fold Washcloths, Hand Towels, Underwear, & Other Small Items — I often will sort these out from the big laundry pile and make a small pile for each child to fold, based upon their folding abilities.

4. Sort & Fold Socks — Sorting and folding socks can be a fun job for little people. And you can teach matching, colors, and counting with it, too.

5. Put Away Laundry — When my kids help with laundry, I have each of them put away their own laundry plus sometimes some towels. It’s amazing how much more quickly things get put away when multiple people are working together!

6. Water Plants — Use a plastic watering can (we found ours at the dollar store or you can make one from a milk jug) to make it fun and easy for small hands.

7. Dust/Wipe Down Surfaces — 4-year-olds are great at cleaning baseboards, small floor areas, wiping down cupboards, or dusting surfaces. If you have a feather duster, they might have fun trying that out, too!

8. Wipe Down Sink/Toilet — Cleaning wipes work especially well for young children to use. Or, you can spray some nontoxic cleaner onto a rag and let them wipe down the sink, toilet, or floor in the bathroom. As they get used to that skill, they can also learn how to clean the toilet with the toilet brush, with my supervision.

9. Empty Trashes — 4-year-olds are usually big enough and strong enough to tie up the trash bag and haul it out to the garage or back door.

10. Wipe Down Door Handles — Give your child a cleaning wipe or a damp rag and have them wipe down all the door handles. This is a favorite chore at our house!

11. Clear the Table — Teach your children to clear their plates after each meal (our younger children are still working on doing this without needing to be reminded!)

12. Rinse Dishes/Load Dishwasher –A 4-year-old is usually old enough to stand on a chair at the kitchen sink and rinse nonbreakable dishes (be sure to remove the knives and other sharp or dangerous objects before letting them do this). They can also help to load silverware and other nonbreakable dishes into the dishwasher.

13. Simple Meal Prep — Kierstyn has learned how to pour cereal/milk, make toast and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, and pop popcorn on her own. She also often helps me when I’m cooking.

14. Set the Table — Teach your children how to set the table correctly from the time they are young — it’s a skill many adults still don’t know! 🙂

15. Mop — My dad got my older girls child-sized mops for Christmas one year and they loved them. And while it took them a bit to perfect their mopping skills, they did a pretty good job at mopping a small area right away.

Printable Chore Chart for 4 Year Olds

If you’re a visual person, you may download my FREE printable chore chart to start using in your home today!

Looking for other age-appropriate chore ideas or help teaching kids about money? You’ll love these other posts:

• 20 Chore Ideas for 7-Year-Olds
• 10 Chore Ideas for Toddlers
• Moms, You Should Stop Doing This!
• Our Dollar Tree Shopping Trip (and Lesson in Finance)
• Stop Waiting Until Your Kids Are Teens to Talk About Money
• 15 Financial Skills Every Teen Should Know! (Free Printable Guide)
• The $90 Mistake That Was Totally Worth It
• Why We Don’t Pay For Everything For Our Kids
• 25 Summer Jobs for Teens (and younger!)
• Ask Crystal: Do you give your kids an allowance?

What chores do your 4-year-olds do? I’d love to hear other ideas!