Do the chores
Help out at home says nothing about where to begin or when you are finished, and that is usually exactly where things stall. The pictures below turn the umbrella word into separate chores your child can take one at a time, in an order the two of you agree on.
♂Clean and sweep
A child wipes a table with a cloth and holds a broom in the other hand.
♂Boy tidying up
Holding a broom in one hand and a stack of folded towels in the other, a boy stands next to a bucket, a cloth and a green rubbish bag.
♂Boy sweeping up with a brush and dustpan
A smiling boy bends down and sweeps dirt off the floor with a red hand brush and a grey dustpan.
♂Person with a dustpan and mop bucket
A smiling person holds a dustpan in one hand and a mop in the other, beside a red bucket and a yellow sponge.
♂Boy handing over a laundry basket
A smiling boy hands a green basket with folded yellow clothes to another person's hand.
♂Two children cleaning the bathtub
Two smiling children scrub a purple bathtub with green sponges, beside a broom, a laundry basket and a washing machine.
♂Person finished with the cleaning
A smiling person holds a vacuum cleaner and stretches out the other hand, with a broom beside them, a laundry basket and a speech bubble with a tick.
♂Boy lifting a laundry basket onto the table
A smiling boy lifts a green basket of laundry onto a table with folded towels, beside a mop and a yellow bucket.
♀Do the chores
A child sweeps the floor in front of washing machines with a broom and dustpan.
♀Person wiping a window and sweeping
A smiling person wipes a pane with a yellow sponge while sweeping the floor with a brush and dustpan, with laundry on a line above.
♀Person hanging up a red shirt
A smiling person holds out a red t-shirt towards a washing line with clothes, beside a full laundry basket, a mop and a sponge.
♀Child passing a scrubbing brush
A smiling child holds a dustpan in one hand and passes a scrubbing brush across a table to another hand, beside a laundry basket.
♀Person carrying laundry to the machine
A smiling person carries a green basket of laundry to a purple washing machine, beside a detergent bottle and a box.
♀Adult and child carrying a laundry basket together
A smiling adult and a smiling child carry a yellow basket of folded towels together, beside a vacuum cleaner and a counter with a spray bottle.
♀Muck out the stable
A person pushes a wheelbarrow of hay in a stable where a horse looks out of the stall.
About this visual support
Chores at home are not one task but an umbrella over ten: clearing the table, sorting laundry, sweeping the floor, taking out the rubbish, watering the plants. The instruction itself carries neither a starting point nor a finish line, and for a child who struggles to hold a plan in their head, that vagueness is what blocks the whole thing. The resistance is more often about a missing first move than about being unwilling.
Visual support breaks the umbrella into actions you can see: one picture per chore, in the order you agree on. The end becomes as visible as the beginning, which makes it easier to enter something that otherwise feels endless. A tip that works specifically for housework is to let your child choose the order of three cards and put the rest away. The choice gives control, and three cards make the finish line countable instead of tidying until things look good enough.
If you want the week's chores in your pocket, you can put them together in the Routined app and try it for fourteen days at no cost. The pictures on this page are free to download.
Use this image in a schedule
Build your own visual schedule with this image and download it as a print-ready PDF. Completely free.
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