STEP TWO- Determine what really needs doing, and how often Go from room to room, with pad and pencil, and with those kids old enough to understand, and therefore to participate. List everything that needs doing, and estimate how often it should be done. Frequency estimates are subject to wild discrepancies, if Dad is inexperienced, as are estimates of how long an apparently simple task should take. Keep an open mind, and allow for adjustments. You'll get the idea.
Older kids can learn to take some responsibility for much younger ones.
Dad's capabilities, remember, should be tempered by the likelihood that he'll still be the breadwinner, most of the day. FOUR - Devise a fair and mutually agreed division of responsibilities Try to negotiate a schedule which everyone can understand and believes fair. One family rotates dishwashing duties, while another may find that one member prefers to trade all dishwashing duty for complete responsibility in other areas, like vacuuming. If it's too rigidly defined, at least one participant will find it burdensome, and the whole scheme will fall apart. The rotation method, in families with appropriate age groups, works especially well, if Dad makes it clear that he's going to take his turn, and doesn't ask the kids to do anything he wouldn't or couldn't do himself.