Chore Chart for an 11 Year Old: Printable and Ideas

An 11-year-old is somewhere between child and teenager, and a chore chart handed down from above often gets a shrug. The same chart that child helped write gets used. This page gives you a printable with eight jobs for an 11-year-old, a way to build the list with them in ten minutes, and a sample week that fits around homework.

The printable chart

The printable has eight jobs, boxes from Monday to Sunday and points beside each task. Choose three or four as daily jobs and spread the others across the week. It suits a fifth or sixth grader. Leave out anything your child already does without being asked, and add a blank line or two for something they suggest.

What an 11-year-old can really do

Eleven-year-olds can think ahead, handle most household tools and work for 20 to 30 minutes if the job makes sense to them. Their limits are mostly motivation and time, not ability. Expect about 30 minutes of chores a day in total.

Build the chart with them

This is the step that matters most at 11. Sit down for ten minutes with a pencil and go through it like this:

1. Show the list of possible jobs and let your child cross off three they like least and star three they like most.
2. Agree that two or three jobs are fixed for everyone (dishes after dinner, for example).
3. Let them pick the time for each job, within a window you set: "after homework, before dinner."
4. Ask what rewards they want. Screen time, a friend over, and money toward something specific are all common.
5. Set a review for two weeks from now, and keep it.

A child who did that is far less likely to say "this is unfair." If your 11-year-old still pushes back, our page on what to do when your child refuses to do chores has calm scripts for that moment.

A sample week around homework

An 11-year-old with sports twice a week might do this: bed (5) and table (5) daily, backpack (5) on school days, dishwasher on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (30), bathroom sink on Tuesday and Thursday (20), laundry on Sunday (10), and a meal on Saturday (15) plus the car every other week (20).

That adds up to about 170 points in a normal week, plus 20 more in a week with the car. At 100 points for a medium reward and 300 to 500 for a big one, your child gets something small by midweek and a goal worth saving for in about two to three weeks. On busy sports days, drop the bathroom and the dishwasher, and keep the bed and the school bag. A shorter list done every time beats a perfect one skipped.

For the details of a good starting method, see our guide to making a chore chart in six steps, and for the wider picture of how to get a child on board, how to get kids to help around the house.

What to do when they push back

Expect it. Pre-teens test every rule. Stay brief and pleasant. "Dishes are before screens, same as always." Do not argue the point at the sink, and do not take it personally. If they miss a job, they miss the points, and they can earn them back the next day. Avoid using chores as punishment, because that turns every job into a penalty.

You can see how this changes by the next step up in the chore chart for a 12 year old, and what came before in the chore chart for a 10 year old.

Running the chart in Famiyo

Famiyo is a free family app for iPhone and Android that combines a shared family calendar, chores with points and a rewards shop; kids join with a code, no email needed. For an 11-year-old, the chart lives on their own phone, which suits an age that dislikes a poster on the fridge. You add each chore, pick who does it and the points, and set how often it repeats. They get a notification for a new task, tick it off, and see their points. You can approve every job or let them check off, and you can see the last 7 days of chores for each child.

You can compare tools in our list of the best chore chart apps.

Print the chart, sit down with your child tonight and let them star the three jobs they would like to keep.