Children Should Be Required to Help with Household Tasks - IELTS Task 2 Sample Essays

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Model Essay 1

Requiring children to contribute to household tasks as soon as they are capable is not exploitation but education. I strongly agree with this position. Done well, age-appropriate chores cultivate self-efficacy, discipline, and empathy, and they teach the mechanics of daily life that schools seldom cover. The discussion below argues first for the developmental value of chores and second for a principled framework ensuring fairness and balance with academic demands.

Chores are a practical curriculum for character. When a seven-year-old lays the table, they rehearse sequencing, attention to detail, and accountability; when a twelve-year-old manages laundry, they learn planning, prioritisation, and delayed gratification. These seemingly modest routines build executive function more reliably than lectures on “responsibility.” Moreover, shared work fosters prosocial habits: children see that comfort at home is a collective achievement, not a service delivered by invisible hands. Even small tasks—watering plants, packing school bags the night before, wiping kitchen counters—create repeated micro-moments of competence, which compound into a durable sense of agency. In adolescence, modest financial tasks—tracking a grocery list to a budget, comparing unit prices—translate household labour into numeracy and judgment. Far from eroding study time, this structure often improves it: students who plan chores must also plan homework, and the same skills transfer.

Critics worry that compulsory chores can become punitive, gendered, or a tax on learning time. These risks are real when households lack clear principles. The remedy is not abandonment but design. Chores should be calibrated by ability (proportionality), scheduled and predictable (so children can plan), rotated (to prevent gender stereotyping and task monopolies), and paired with autonomy of method (so children can improve a process they own). A brief “family charter” and a rotating roster can operationalise this: responsibilities lighten during exam weeks and expand during holidays; weekly reviews allow renegotiation; occasional “all-hands” tasks model teamwork rather than top-down orders. In this framework, chores are not drudgery but civic rehearsal, teaching reciprocity and fairness in a miniature society.

In sum, early, structured participation in household work develops competence, character, and communal sensibility. With thoughtful guardrails—age-appropriateness, rotation, predictability, and balance with school—requiring chores equips children for adulthood and citizenship. The obligation is not a burden; it is a formative gift.

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Model Essay 2

Compelling children to engage in household duties at an early age is often seen as a means of instilling discipline, but this assumption is flawed. I fully disagree with the idea that young children should be required to help with domestic work as soon as they are able. Such expectations risk undermining childhood as a period of learning, growth, and play, while also creating imbalances that may harm academic and emotional development. This essay will argue that mandatory chores can interfere with children’s cognitive focus and unfairly burden them with responsibilities that belong to adults.

Requiring children to contribute to housework at a young age can significantly detract from the time and energy they need for intellectual development. The years of childhood are irreplaceable in terms of brain plasticity and learning capacity, and every additional hour spent on enforced chores may erode opportunities for reading, exploring, or developing hobbies. For instance, a child pressured to mop floors or wash dishes after school may approach homework with fatigue, reducing the quality of concentration needed for mastering complex tasks such as mathematics or creative writing. Furthermore, children are not miniature adults; their priority should be to immerse themselves in structured education and unstructured play, both of which sharpen problem-solving and social intelligence. Converting their free time into a form of unpaid labour risks normalising the idea that intellectual pursuits are secondary to physical work, which could stifle long-term academic ambition.

Equally concerning is the potential psychological and social imbalance that forced chores may create within households. In practice, the responsibility of housework often falls unevenly, with girls expected to do more than boys or younger siblings pressured to “pull their weight” despite lacking maturity. Such asymmetry can sow resentment and perpetuate gender stereotypes, undermining equality in the home. Moreover, when tasks are imposed without choice, they are unlikely to nurture responsibility but instead foster resistance, guilt, or even low self-worth in children who fail to meet expectations. Childhood should not be reduced to rehearsing adult duties; it should be safeguarded as a space for imagination, curiosity, and emotional resilience. Burdening children with compulsory domestic roles risks eroding these essential foundations.

In conclusion, while household duties may appear to build responsibility, obligating children to take them on too early undermines their education and skews family dynamics. A child’s energy is better invested in intellectual exploration and emotional growth, not in mandatory domestic obligations that prematurely reduce childhood to duty rather than discovery.

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