How to teach your kid to do their own laundry, start to finish

Here's a skill many young adults head off to college without: doing their own laundry. It's not hard. It just takes a few runs with someone showing you how. Between about 9 and 11, most kids are tall enough to reach into the washer and ready to learn the whole thing.

It's also a great planning job. Laundry has steps, waiting, timing and a finish line, the kind of task that exercises the planning and memory skills that a 2022 study linked to doing more household chores. (That study shows a link, not proof of cause.)

If your child hasn't done the first laundry jobs yet, start with sorting, matching and folding.

The safety rules

Detergent. The American Academy of Pediatrics warns that laundry detergent pods are highly concentrated and dangerous if they get in someone's mouth or eyes. If younger children live in or visit your home, the AAP suggests considering traditional detergent instead of pods. Either way:

• Keep detergent in its original container, closed, and stored out of reach of younger siblings.
• Don't leave pods or detergent out on top of the washer or in the laundry basket.
• Wash hands after handling detergent.

The dryer. The U.S. Fire Administration reports that failure to clean was the leading factor in home clothes dryer fires from 2018 to 2020, behind 31% of them. The fix is easy, and kids can own it: clean the lint screen every time.

Step 1: Load the washer

1. Start with a sorted pile: lights or darks.
2. Check pockets, close zippers. Zippers can snag other clothes.
3. Load loosely. Clothes need room to move. Don't pack the drum to the top.
4. Ask a grown-up to show you once. Every washer is a little different.

Step 2: Add detergent and pick a setting

• Measure, don't guess. Use the cap or scoop, and fill only to the line for the load size. More detergent doesn't mean cleaner clothes, just more rinsing.
• Water temperature: cold works for most everyday clothes and keeps colors from fading. Warm or hot is for towels, sheets and very dirty things, if the labels allow.
• Cycle: "normal" for most loads, "delicate" for anything thin or stretchy.
• Close the lid or door, press start, and set a timer so the wet clothes don't sit.

Step 3: Move clothes to the dryer

1. Clean the lint screen first. Pull it out, roll the lint off with your fingers, and slide it back in. Every load, every time.
2. Shake out each piece as it goes in. Fewer wrinkles, faster drying.
3. Check labels for "don't dry" items. Some clothes should hang or lie flat to dry instead.
4. Pick the setting and start it.

Step 4: Read care labels

The Federal Trade Commission's Care Labeling Rule requires clothing makers to attach care instructions, which is why almost every piece of clothing has a tag. Most use symbols. The five basic shapes are worth learning:

An X through any symbol means "don't."

Practice: grab three pieces of clothing, read each label, and explain to a grown-up how you'd wash them.

Step 5: Fold and put away

The job isn't done until the clothes are back in drawers. Fold right out of the dryer, while things are warm, and wrinkles stay away.

Common mistakes (and they're fine)

• The pink load. A new red shirt in with the whites. It happens to everyone once, and it's how the sorting rule really sinks in.
• Shrunken sweater. That's what labels are for.
• Forgotten wet load. Musty smell? Run it again. Next time, set a timer.

Treat mistakes as part of learning. Laundry is very forgiving.

The mastery test: two weeks of your own laundry

When your child can run a load safely, give them full ownership: their own laundry, start to finish, for two weeks. Pick a laundry day, put it on the calendar, and let them run it. Check in, but don't take over.

Make it a quest

In Family Quests, this is the Laundry Runner skill. Practice quests are load and start the washer, move clothes to the dryer (done when the dryer is running and the lint screen is clean) and read clothing care labels, and the mastery quest is do your own laundry start to finish for two weeks. Start free.

Next: teach your kid to clean, or go back to sorting and folding.