Chores for Teenagers: The Realistic 13-17 Chore List

The chores conversation usually breaks down somewhere around age 13. The kid has a phone, a friend group, homework that lasts till 11pm, and zero patience for a chart Mom prints out on Sunday. Everyone agrees teenagers should do chores; nobody quite knows how to enforce them without a daily fight.

The honest answer is that chores at age 13-17 are not really about labor. They’re about whether your kid can run their own life by age 18 — laundry, food, money, appointments, time. The chore system that works for teens is one designed backward from that goal, not forward from a list.

TL;DR

• About 30-45 min/day of home upkeep is the right volume for most teens.
• Their own laundry, fully. No exceptions by age 13.
• One weekly cooked meal, real (not sandwiches), by age 14.
• Shared cleaning on a rotation, not a daily list.
• Privileges tied to weekly standards, not daily compliance.

Chores for 13-17 year-olds

The list below is the 13-17 band from the full age-by-age chore chart. Don’t try to assign all of them at once — most teens already have school + activities + a social life. Pick the ownership areas (their laundry, their room, their meals) plus a rotation share of household work.

What’s realistic between school and screens

A teenager in middle or high school is genuinely busy in a way younger kids aren’t. Most teens have 2-4 hours of homework, an after-school activity, and a social life that runs through the phone. Trying to layer 90 minutes of daily chores on top of that produces resentment, not skill-building.

The realistic target is about 30-45 minutes a day of home upkeep, plus 2-3 hours on a weekend morning for shared work (yard, deep cleaning, meal prep). That’s meaningfully less than what an adult does — but the point isn’t labor parity. It’s building the habits before they move out.

Why a wall chart stops working at 13

Three reasons. First, teenagers aren’t physically at home as predictably as younger kids — practice runs late, they’re at a friend’s, they get home after dinner. A wall chart only works if they walk past it. Second, they have a phone in their pocket, which is where every other reminder in their life lives. Third, they actively reject visible parent-tracking — a wall chart with names feels juvenile, and teens will fail it just to assert independence.

The systems that work at this age:

• A shared family app they have on their phone (see the family chore app guide). Same audit, no wall chart.
• A weekly standard, not a daily list. “The bathroom is clean by Sunday at 9pm” beats “clean the bathroom every Wednesday after dinner.”
• One Sunday review. Five minutes. What got done, what didn’t, what’s coming.

Allowance, jobs, and money

Allowance changes meaning at this age. A 13-year-old’s $5/week feels like nothing; a 16-year-old’s $20/week feels like nothing. The honest move is to layer income sources:

• Base allowance (small, untied to chores) for being a member of the household.
• Paid optional jobs (mowing, washing the car, pet-sitting for neighbors) — these pay real money for real work.
• Outside income by age 14-15 — babysitting, a part-time job, online freelance work. This is where most of their spending money should come from by 16.

A kids debit card like Greenlight or GoHenry handles the money side well at this age (real card, parent-controlled spend categories, savings/investing sub-accounts), but won’t replace a household chore system. Most families that use both pair the card with a family app for the chore + calendar side.

How to enforce without the daily fight

The single biggest mistake is daily enforcement. Teens read daily nagging as “I don’t trust you,” and they’re half-right. The system that works:

1. Standard, not steps. Define what done looks like, not how to get there.
2. Weekly checkpoint. Audit Sunday. Don’t walk by their room on Wednesday and comment.
3. Privilege tie. Pick a privilege the teen actually cares about (the car, weekend plans, late-night screens). Tie it to the weekly standard. Not daily.
4. No rescuing. If they don’t do their laundry and they’re out of jeans, the consequence is: they’re out of jeans. Don’t do an emergency load.

The launch-readiness checklist (by 18)

Most teens leave home at 18-19. The point of chores in the 13-17 band is that they can run their own life by then. By 18 they should genuinely be able to:

• Do their full laundry — including reading care labels and not shrinking sweaters.
• Cook 5-7 real meals from scratch (not just frozen pizza).
• Manage a budget — pay for groceries, save, and not run out of money mid-month.
• Schedule their own appointments — doctor, dentist, haircut, car service.
• Handle simple household failures — a tripped breaker, a clogged drain, a flat tire.
• Run a grocery shop with a list and stay close to budget.
• Do their own taxes (basic) once they have a part-time job.

If your 17-year-old can’t do five of these confidently, that’s the chore list for the next year. Not more dishwasher rotations.

See also: chores for 8-year-olds, the ADHD chore chart guide, the 12-app family app guide, or the full age-by-age chore chart.