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Quick answer: Teenagers should own complete jobs, not steps: their own laundry start-to-finish, cooking one family meal a week, mowing, dishes, bathroom cleaning, and errands. The shift that works at 13+: swap parental reminders for real deadlines and natural consequences, and consider paying for extra jobs beyond a fair baseline of unpaid family contribution.
What changed at 13
Younger kids do chores for connection and stars. Teenagers are running a different program: autonomy. Adolescent-development research consistently finds that teens respond to being treated as competent adults-in-training and push back hard against anything that smells like control. A chart with smiley faces smells like control.
So the system has to grow up with them: fewer, bigger jobs; ownership instead of supervision; deadlines instead of reminders; and consequences that come from reality, not from you.
The teenage chore list
Personal ownership (unpaid — this is just being a person):
- Their own laundry, start to finish, on their own schedule
- Their room to an agreed minimum (door can hide mess; food and dishes cannot stay)
- Managing their own school prep — see the school morning checklist for handing this off cleanly
Family contribution (unpaid, rotating):
- Cooking one family dinner a week (a 16-year-old who can cook five meals is launch-ready)
- Dishes / dishwasher cycles
- Trash, recycling, lawn, snow — the perimeter jobs
- Sibling taxi support, pet ownership duties
Paid extras (optional):
- Car washing, deep-cleans, painting, babysitting siblings on parents' night out
- Anything you'd otherwise pay an outsider to do
Should teenagers be paid for chores?
The three-tier model above resolves most of the debate: baseline personal and family jobs are unpaid — nobody pays Mom for cooking — while genuinely extra work can earn real money. This keeps contribution from becoming a transaction while still teaching that effort converts to income. The full argument, including the commission-only model some families swear by, is in should kids get paid for chores?, and current pocket-money numbers are in allowance by age.
The attitude problem, decoded
Teen chore resistance is rarely laziness. It's usually one of these:
- Control: the job is fine; being told when is the insult. Fix: deadlines, not commands. "Dishes done by 9" beats "do the dishes now."
- Fairness accounting: teens keep meticulous invisible ledgers of sibling workloads. Fix: make the rotation visible — a shared chart ends the litigation. (Works for younger siblings too: chore charts for multiple kids.)
- Overload: school + sports + job may genuinely be full. Fix: renegotiate the load in a calm moment, not mid-conflict.
If the resistance runs deeper than logistics, the diagnostic in my kid won't do chores applies at any age.
Does a chore app still work for teens?
Differently, yes. Teens ignore the confetti but respect the ledger: Star Chart's weekly schedules, visible task rotation, and real-life rewards (parent-approved, star-priced) turn "did you do it?" into a glance at a shared source of truth. No nagging required — which is the entire point at this age.
Frequently asked questions
How many chores should a teenager have?
Personal ownership (laundry, room, school prep) plus roughly 30–60 minutes of family contribution per week in rotating jobs, plus optional paid extras. Total load should flex with exam periods and sports seasons.
Should I take the phone away if chores aren't done?
Prefer natural sequences over confiscation: "screens start when the kitchen's done" is an order of operations, not a punishment. Confiscation invites a power struggle; sequencing invites a schedule.
Is it too late to start chores with a 15-year-old?
No, but skip the chart-with-stickers phase. Start with a family meeting, a short list of complete jobs, real deadlines, and (optionally) real money for extras. Expect two rocky weeks, then a new normal.
Sources and further reading
- Harvard Study of Adult Development (Harvard Medical School)
- Chores and Responsibility (HealthyChildren.org, American Academy of Pediatrics)