Children’s Chores for the Kitchen & Dining Room

Let’s put together a chore chart for meal time because after dinner chores don’t just teach children how to clean, they teach responsibility and life skills!

When my oldest son was a teenager, a younger mom asked me what I had done to teach him to clean up after himself and to do the things he saw were needing to be done. After considering all of the different chores and lessons we had taught him over the years, I landed on two things that had made a big difference – Home Blessing chores and Table Chores.

In fact, Blake had even told me that he couldn’t help but automatically start cleaning after dinner because he’d been doing it for years. As an adult, he’s still keeping his home neat and tidy, and I’d like to think it is due in part to all the years of training in our home.

How to Clean Up the Kitchen and Dining Room After a Meal

Over the years, I have written about our table chores here on the blog, often including the exact chores and ages of kids. In the video above (in which I am VERY pregnant with our 10th!), I also shared what it was like having a college student in our home and what I expected him to do for Table Chores.

Help your children learn how to manage a home of their own with my FREE CHECKLIST!

But, this post is going to be more of a step-by-step process of creating a Table Chore Chart for your family and helping you understand just how much patience goes into training your children to see what needs to be done and then consistently do it.

When to Start Teaching Your Kids to Clean Up After Meals?

I didn’t start teaching my son to help with Table Chores until he was around 7 or 8. I should have started much earlier, but I was new to the world of children doing chores (I did not have many chores as a child), and I had no idea what he was capable of.

By the way…if you’re not sure what YOUR kids can do for chores:

Get my Age Appropriate Chore List!

Back then, I spent a lot of time stalking large family forums, books, and blogs looking for ideas to create a large family culture in my own home since large families always seemed so organized! (By the way, large family moms are not always naturally organized. Just ask me!)

On one of the sites I visited, I saw a list of Table Chores to have your children do after meals. I was so excited because I had been doing all the work alone for 7 years, and with 3 kids and another on the way, I NEEDED HELP!

Now I realize I could have started Table Chores MUCH earlier (around age 4 or 5), so now I start my little ones helping with the mealtime clean up at that age. They don’t do a lot, but it helps them to get into the habit of helping.

Basic After Dinner Chores for Young Children

When I started with my 7 and 4 year olds, I kept things very simple:

• Remove everything from the table – food, dinnerware, napkins, drinks, etc.
• Wipe down the table.
• Sweep the floor.

My 4 year old mostly just “bussed the table” as we called it. She wasn’t capable of much more than that. My 7 year old could wipe the table down and then sweep the floor.

NOTE: It is incentive for the child who is wiping down the table to not just knock all of the food off onto the floor if that same child is also sweeping!

It’s a good idea to teach your little ones from the moment they can steadily carry a plate to the kitchen, to clear their own place at the table. This happens around 2-3 years old. This is also a big reason why we buy Corelle dinnerware. It is virtually indestructible – i.e. “toddler proof.”

This is the set we own:

How Long Does it Take for Kids to Clean Automatically?

I remember thinking about a year into this process that I had expected it to take only a few weeks before they did their jobs automatically. Surely, after 3 meals a day, 7 days a week, they would not need to be reminded of their Table Chores and they would do them effectively and efficiently.

But, in reality, it took a long time for my kids to learn to clean up after dinner automatically.

In fact, it was 5 YEARS before I saw any fruit from my training.

I stood over them day in and day out, reminding, helping, encouraging, and often sighing huge exasperated sighs. I was convinced it should not have taken that long, but here I am with 8 more kids and guess what?! It’s taken that long for every single one of them.

Adding More Kids and More Chores to the List

5 years into the Table Chores, I decided it was time to add in my next set of kids (ages 4 & 5). As the kids got older and there were more of them to help out, I had to adjust the list, and frankly, I’m still adjusting because 1 child has left the nest and another works and is in college. Things never cease to change!

See my Table Chore posts from 2010, 2015, and the video from 2016 for exactly what chores were being done by which ages at that time.

Our more advanced list with 4 kids helping out included:

• Remove everything from the table – food, dinnerware, napkins, drinks, etc.
• Put away leftovers.
• Wipe down the table.
• Wipe down the chairs.
• Sweep the floor.
• Wash mealtime dishes.
• Dry mealtime dishes.
• Put away mealtime dishes.
• Wipe down counters.

At the time, we did not have a dishwasher and our kitchen was tiny, so the dishes had to be washed, dried, and put away for there to be a functional kitchen at the end of the day.

Now that we have a dishwasher, I no longer require the dishes to be dried, but the dishwasher does have to be unloaded – accomplished by the 7 & 9 year olds.

How to Order the Table Chore Routine

One thing you need to keep in mind when you are creating your Table Chore routine is the fact that you can’t have a child sweeping the floor before the table has been wiped down. It will be counter-productive. Likewise, you can’t have a child washing down the counters before the food has been put away. It takes a little bit of trial and error, but eventually you’ll find a routine and order that works for your family.

Follow this simple how-to to get your Table Chore list in the proper order:

1. Write down all the chores needing to be done after a meal.
2. Write down the names of every child capable of helping with the chores (leave a space below their names to write in their chores).
3. Separate out all the chores by child. (Keep in mind what they are capable of – see my Age Appropriate Chore Chart.)
4. Next, logically order each child’s chart by what needs to be done first, second, third, and so on, considering what the other children are doing at the time as well.
5. Rewrite a neat list or type one up and print off.

This is the same method I use to create my Weekly House Cleaning Chart.

Creating a Meal Time Chore List Rotation

There will come a day when you will have BIG helpers! I promise! (although some are more helpful than others…just sayin’)

At that point, you will need to divide up the workload in a little more creative way.

Here are 3 different ways to handle Meal Time Chores when you have older kids. (note: we currently use a mix of the first and second methods because we have a few big kids and a lot of littles.)

Static Chore List
(includes all children capable of helping)

A static chore list stays the same until a new chore list must be made. Children are given specific chores that they will do every single time a meal is served. These chores only change when circumstance require the list to be revised and revamped.

PROS:

• Specific chores are mastered.
• Easy for mom to keep track of.

CONS:

• No opportunity to work on learning new chores (until a new chart must be made).
• Causes kids to feel as if they will always be “stuck” with these chores.

Monthly Rotating Chore List
(includes all children capable of helping)

A Monthly (or Weekly) Rotating Chore List gives everyone who is capable a job to do following a meal. Those jobs change every week or month (I prefer monthly to give kids time to master their chore).

PROS:

• Children are not “stuck” doing the same chore for a long period of time.
• It allows sufficient time for mom to teach how to do the chore.
• It allows for the opportunity to master a chore.

CONS:

• Switching chores too often can cause confusion.
• Whenever you do switch chores, there is a learning curve before everyone settles into their new rhythm.

Rotating Kids Chore List
(does not include everyone all the time)

When you have a large family, it is sometimes a good idea to rotate kids out of the chores on a weekly or monthly basis. This means you will have less people in the kitchen at one time. You simply choose how many kids you need for the Table Chores to be done well, and then rotate your kids through the list cyclically.

PROS:

• Less people in the kitchen.
• Could present a better learning opportunity for mom to teach mastery of chores.

CONS:

• Could be difficult to keep track of.
• Can be confusing for mom and the kids.
• You may not have enough big helpers to really do all of the Table Chores well.

As I said a moment ago, we currently use a mish-mash of the first two methods. I only have two “big” kids capable and available to help with Table Chores, so they manage the bigger chores of dishes and cleaning up the kitchen.

My younger kids (ages 11, 9, 7, & 5) clean up the dining room, unload the dishwasher, sweep, and go on a “dish hunt” to find dirty dishes around the house. Their jobs rotate on a monthly basis.

NOTE: If you need help figuring out when to give a child a new chores, read this post:

Changing Chores: The Art & Science of Knowing Who Gets What Chore

Other posts you might like:

• Training Our Children to Manage a Home
• Managing Meal Time with Babies & Toddlers