Chores your toddler (2 or 3 year old) can do

Teach your toddler important lifeskills by assigning her some chores around the house.

When my daughter was a newborn and I had a lot of free time, I used to read a lot of parenting books and articles. One thing I came across was 'Do not prepare the road for your child. Prepare your child for the road'. How true! While as a parent I try to give my child a happy and carefree childhood, I also understand that life outside the comfort of house and family will not treat my baby with velvet gloves. As a parent, it is also my responsibility to teach my child life skills that she'll need as a grown up. Just like you teach your child to be courteous, you also need to teach her to put things away in place, flush the toilet and other basic things. Here are a few chores you can, and must, ask your 2-3 old to do.:

• Clean up after playing: A place for everything and everything in its place -- this is the mantra you need to follow if you don't want your house to look like a trainwreck. Get your child to help you put her toys away and tidy her bookshelf. Gradually, ask her to put away things as soon as she's done with it. If a two-year-old is capable enough to pick and choose a toy, then she can also put away her toys.
• Put away clothes/ shoes: Your toddler might still need help to pull up her pants, but she can definitely put away dirty laundry in the laundry hamper. My two-year-old has her own cupboard and she usually picks out her clothes and diapers from it herself. This way, she learns to make a decision (what to wear) and also realises the importance of keeping things in place.
• Make bed: Okay, I am not crazy to suggest that your toddler will fold blankets, but she can put away the pillows and help straighten out the sheets. I started asking my daughter to be my 'little helper' when I would change the sheets and she loved playing with the pillows and putting it away. Now all I have to do is ask who wants to be my little helper!
• Trash things in the dustbin: Teach a toddler a good habit and it will stick! My daughter has been collecting trash, sometimes taking wrappers and pieces of paper from our hands and running to the dustbin since she was 14 months old. This is a fairly easy chore to teach your child as you can do it by demonstrating it yourself. On a side note: be ready for your toddler to reprimand strangers when they litter on the road and public places!
• Water plants: Yourtoddler and a canister of water -- do I need to say more! This is one chore you can get your toddler to do easily.
• Dusting: Which child doesn't love this? You get a busy toddler and clean furniture, what more do you need!
• Wipe and clean: My toddler's favourite toy is the plastic spray bottle I got for her! She can work the spray bottle like a pro and loves to wipe away the droplets. If you don't want your tabletop to be drenched, fill little amount of water in the bottle.

Take cues from your child and assign her chores in a way that interests her. Also, this is not to say that you fire your maid since you have a pint-size worker in the house! This is only a way to teach your child to be more dependent and responsible.

Read this in Hindi.

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