Joanna Fortune: My eldest son resists helping around the house

I’m worried I expect too much from my youngest and not enough from my oldest. Also, it seems unfair that one does much more than his fair share, which could affect their long-term relationship.

Your letter is an excellent example of how, as parents, we are raising individuals. Even though our children are of us and raised in the same home, they have different traits and temperaments. 

While we like to think we parent them the same way, we do not. 

In the big things, we probably do — equal opportunities, access to activities and education, etc. 

However, in smaller everyday things, our connections with our children are different, and we think and feel differently about each of them (even when we love them equally).

I am curious how you have set up your expectations for your children. Are there set chores each is responsible for each day and week? 

Ideally, we should introduce chores — tidying up their toys, clearing away their plates and cutlery, and keeping their bedroom in order — from a young age. We can grow responsibility in line with their development.

There should be chores no one is paid to do because part of being in a family means helping out — additional chores for which they may earn pocket money as an added incentive.

If you have just started expecting your children to help around the house or are doing so casually, you will have a tougher time getting buy-in from them. 

You may have to sit together as a family, state a boundary that at their age, you will not be picking up after them or doing everything for them, that you are writing a list of tasks to be shared among the family and that it is not OK if some family members do the bulk of the household tasks that everyone benefits from. 

They can take turns choosing tasks from your list or roll a dice to see who gets to pick first. 

Another approach is to write each task on a separate piece of paper, fold it up, and ask them to pick one in turns from a bowl.

Your older son is clearly not motivated to help like your younger son. What happens when he refuses to do a task? 

It sounds like it gets done anyway, and he knows this, meaning there is no real reason for him to do anything other than opt-out.

As he is so averse to helping out (and has been getting away with this), you could start by giving him a few small tasks that do not take up much time but get him into a pattern of participating more actively. 

You are not asking him to help; you are asking him which two or three chores from the list he will do over the next month and which will be swapped with his brother at the end of it. If you are not linking pocket money to chores, this may be an incentive.

Try to approach his reluctance in as playful and calm a way as possible. I wouldn’t expect him to be thrilled about this change, and I would give him some time to adapt while holding a boundary around your clear expectations of him. 

Praise his efforts, regardless of the outcome.

• If you have a question for child psychotherapist Dr Joanna Fortune, please send it to parenting@examiner.ie