🧹 Chores for 17-year-olds

Chores most 17-year-olds can do alone

Chores to start together

Most children can begin these at 17 with you alongside. Expect to show, then help, then watch.

What a 17-year-old can do

At 17, the list of jobs your teen can run on their own is almost the same as the list an adult housemate handles. They can cook a family dinner, do their own laundry from start to finish, mow the lawn, clean a bathroom, shop from a grocery list and get themselves up with an alarm. Most of these were learned years ago and simply need a place in the week.

Two items sit at the edge. Booking their own appointments is the new skill at this age, so it is worth handing over now while you are still nearby to prompt. Paying a bill or a subscription usually works better with a parent alongside until about 18. Basic home repairs are reasonable from around 16, with firm limits: nothing involving mains wiring, gas or roofs, and show them where the water shut-off and the breaker box are.

The real limit at 17 is not skill. It is noticing. Your teen can clean a bathroom well and still walk past a grubby sink for a week. Treat that as normal and build the reminder into the schedule rather than into your voice.

Daily chores

Think of the daily load as a fair share of the household, not a favor. In practice that means two or three jobs of five to fifteen minutes, chosen so the house keeps running: their own breakfast, a packed lunch, unloading the dishwasher, wiping the counters, taking the kitchen trash out, feeding the pet or walking the dog.

Tie each job to something that already happens. Dishes happen after dinner. The trash goes out when the kitchen closes. Their bag gets packed before bed. A job attached to an existing moment needs far fewer reminders than one floating loose in the day.

Watch the timing in the evening. A 17-year-old needs 8 to 10 hours of sleep per 24 hours, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine consensus endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. If the kitchen clean-up only starts at ten at night, either move it earlier or make it shorter. Tired teenagers and chores make a bad combination, and you will end up doing it yourself.

Weekly and occasional chores

Ownership works better than a list of random tasks. Give your teen whole areas: their own laundry from start to finish, their bedroom, one bathroom, the bins on collection day, the lawn in summer. Whole areas remove the "you never told me" problem, because the area is theirs whether or not anyone mentions it that week.

A workable weekly set looks like this. Their bedroom tidied, about 15 minutes. Bed sheets changed. Their laundry washed, dried, folded and put away. One bathroom wiped, toilet and tub included. The bins out. In season, leaves raked or snow shoveled. Somewhere in there, one family dinner cooked by them, which takes about an hour and is one of the most useful things a 17-year-old can own.

Monthly and seasonal jobs fit around that: the fridge cleared out, windows cleaned, the car washed, outgrown clothes sorted. Meal planning is realistic alone from around 16, and it pairs naturally with the grocery shop. Hand them the list and the kitchen and see what comes home.

Jobs to start together

Booking their own appointments is the job to start this year. Sit with them the first time: the dentist's number, what to say, what details to have ready, where to write the date. The second time, stay in the room but let them talk. After that, ask them to tell you when it is done, not to ask permission to do it.

Paying a bill or a subscription is the next one, and it usually takes until about 18 to feel routine. Start with something small and in their name where possible, like a phone plan, and let them watch the money leave the account.

Ironing is worth teaching properly. Irons get hot enough to burn, so show them how to stand it upright, keep the cord clear of the board and switch it off straight after. Basic home repairs can start around 16 with clear boundaries: no mains wiring, no gas, no roofs, and a tour of the water shut-off and the breaker box before they touch anything.

Making chores stick at 17

At this age, chores stick when they are treated as a household agreement rather than a set of orders. Sit down once a term and agree the list out loud. Ask what feels unfair, and be ready to move something. A 17-year-old who helped shape the list argues with it far less.

Write it down where everyone can see it. A shared list on the fridge or a phone is not nagging; it is the memory of a conversation you already had. Then step back. If the bathroom is their area, let it be their area for a week, even if it looks worse than you would like. Natural consequences, like a shirt that is not clean for Friday, teach faster than a lecture and cost less.

Pick your moments. A reminder at 4pm lands differently than one shouted up the stairs at 9pm. Notice the jobs that get done without being asked and say so plainly: "Thanks for doing the kitchen, I noticed." That sentence does more work than three reminders.

Keep the load realistic. School, a job, sport and sleep all compete for the same hours. If the week is packed, cut a job rather than let the whole system collapse.

Rewards, points and pocket money

There are two kinds of jobs in most families, and 17 is a good age to be clear about which is which. The first is the baseline share that comes with living there: their dishes, their laundry, their room, a hand with dinner. Many families do not pay for that. The second is extra work: washing the car, clearing the garage, a bigger project. That can be paid.

If you want a starting figure for pocket money, a popular rule of thumb is one dollar, pound or euro per year of age per week, so about 17 a week at 17. Plenty of families pay less and add paid extra jobs on top, which keeps the baseline share separate from earning.

Points work well when you want to track effort rather than cash. A common scale is 5 points for a small job and 10 for a bigger one, with points traded for something your teen actually wants: a later curfew on a Saturday, a lift to a friend's house, money toward a purchase.

Keep the system simple enough that you will still run it in March. One list, one weekly reset, and a clear statement of what the money or points are for.

Questions parents ask