Learning how to do chores teach organizational and other critical life skills. This helps teens reach their full potential and live in the appropriate housing setting for their needs.

Cleaning up or doing other chores isn’t fun for many people but is an important part of life and building responsibilities, which are the first seeds of employment skills for when older. If possible, try to connect the chores to something they enjoy, like listening to music while they do it, caring for a pet or cleaning the sink if they like the feeling of water.

Getting Started

Based on your teen’s age and developmental level, start small with a task with simple steps and then build on that. Be aware that autistic teens may not transfer a task in one setting to another, so explaining and watching for signs of understanding can be helpful. Before you do the next step, ask your teen what comes next?

Including your teen in your daily chores is important for building skills. Give them tasks such as setting the table, helping to fix a meal, sweeping/mopping the floor or taking out the trash and recycling. Give manageable tasks they can master to move up to the next level task. It’s vital to be able to handle daily housekeeping activities in order to gain independence.

Show them how you do laundry starting with simpler tasks like sorting dirty clothes by darks, whites, towels and linens. Make sure they know to remove lint from the dryer after each load.

Understanding Why It's Important and Organizational Skills

Integrate where possible how these activities are important to reach their goals for the future and take care of their home. Keep the information simple to begin and gradually share more. This increases their knowledge while helping to engage them in why doing these tasks matter. For example, cleaning the bathroom regularly prevents mold, keeps things from needing to be repaired as often and helps us avoid getting an infection. When you’re putting groceries away together, share a little about how you pick out groceries, why you shop where you do, how you try to save money in different ways while finding the foods everyone likes.

Teach systems and organizational skills so that if your teen does a chore like putting things away they know where to put it, and you can find it later. Again, learning organization skills is vital to independence. If they want to use a particular approach for how they store things in their bedroom it could be a good experience to encourage their selecting inexpensive plastic bins or cart and asking how they want to set it up.

When your teen does a good job or makes good progress, reinforce with praise.

Build complexity of chores appropriately to your teen’s ages and stages. Chronological age does not always equate to an autistic teen's developmental stage and maturity.

Using Visuals to Learn

If your teen is having a hard time learning a skill for doing a chore, you can try giving them step by step visuals that show each step of what to do in order. Or you could start with what it will look like when it’s done, and the steps for how it got that way in backwards order. You may hear a professional call this forward or backwards chaining.

For some teens, using visuals is helpful and serves as a tool your teen can engage with. Take a picture of the step by step list that you could make a laminated visual checklist or make a flip book that they can flip through. You could attach a dry erase pen with velcro. Or find a short video online of the task for them to watch to learn the steps, which professionals call video modeling. The Milestones Visual Supports Tool Kit features related information and resources.