Madly power cleaning one Sunday morning an hour before my in-laws were due for brunch, a miracle occurred: My 9-year-old daughter offered to sweep the apartment.

Then another miracle occurred: She swept beautifully. She didn't spill a crumb, wielding the dustpan like a little pro. I nearly wept with joy, but I'm not sure why I was so surprised.

Hadn't she loved to "play" cleaning as a toddler with her red plastic broom and pan? She's been responsible for the care and feeding of our two cats for quite some time and they haven't perished. She makes her bed occasionally. She goes to the laundry room to keep my husband company, though I haven't seen her actually do laundry.

A few days after our sweeping breakthrough, I was washing dishes. Out of the corner of my eye I see her flip a new roll of paper towels onto the countertop holder.

"I hope you don't mind, they were out," she said, tossing the empty cardboard roll into the recycling basket.

MIND?!

When did she get competent at truly helpful things? I mean the kind of helpful where I don't have to make positive parenting clucking noises to praise her effort, then do the job myself after she leaves the room. The kind of chore duty not born of my begging, or weighed down by whining and complaining and foot stomping — hers and mine.

We've mostly been laissez-faire about insisting she help out and have avoided the bribe trap when we've sought her assistance — so do all kids just morph into voluntarily useful beings?

Amy McCready, founder of Positive Parenting Solutions, which offers online education and problem-solving for parents of toddlers to teens, said making it happen usually requires a more specific game plan.

"Parents aren't the only ones who benefit," she said. "As children of all ages become more capable and self-sufficient, their confidence and perception of self improves and — the best news — they are MORE WILLING to take on additional new tasks in the future."

McCready, who lives in Raleigh, N.C., and has two boys ages 11 and 13, suggests these approaches:

TRAINING

Begin with simple tasks for young children, such as emptying silverware from the dishwasher, sorting laundry or folding towels. Work toward more complex tasks that can include help preparing meals, start-to-finish laundry and lawn care.

"The important thing is to break the task into steps and train the child on the step-by-step process," she said. "If the child is not successful in doing the new job, it is usually a training issue."

PRESENTATION

No one wants another "chore," so McCready prefers the term "family contribution."

The minor change in semantics implies: "When you do these tasks, you make a difference in our family, you're contributing in a meaningful way. We understand that kids may not love doing these tasks, but it's important to remind them that their efforts matter," she said.

ENCOURAGEMENT

Don't criticize when the task isn't performed to your exact specifications, and don't redo it. "These are surefire ways to douse any enthusiasm for helping in the future," McCready said.

Instead, encourage a child's hard work, effort and improvement. "If he thinks we're only concerned with a 'perfect end product,' he's likely to give up, thinking, 'Why bother, she's never happy with what I do anyway.' You can't blame him."

Sounds good, but how does all of that look from the home trenches?

Caroline Beckering of Bloomington, Minn., uses simple mommy trickery to enlist the aid of her 6-year-old and 10-year-old daughters.

"I play Tom Sawyer to get my girls to help with stuff," she said. " 'Oh no, this laundry is much too fun to share with you! I couldn't possibly let you match socks for me. What will you give me if I let you put clothes on hangers?' "

Suzanne Bastien works full time as a receptionist and is a single mother of six children, ages 1 to 17. She doesn't mess around when it comes to help around their house in Centennial, Colo. Bastien maintains a chore schedule for her kids and starts them young.

"I start preparing them around age 2 to start helping clean up their toys. ... At age 5 they learn to start folding their laundry and where to put it. I walk them through it."

Competency sets in around sixth grade, Bastien said. By high school, "If they don't have clean clothes, it's their issue, not mine." She doesn't believe in "allowance" for laundry and other housework, but she offers it for extras like mowing and weeding outdoors.

Parenting educator Vicki Hoefle, who has five teens, also began engaging her kids in useful things when they were babies. She bought them "little tool belts and gave them simple dusters and rags and anything else I could think of that would help turn a simple request to 'help' into a lifetime 'habit' of contributing."

By the time they were 10 or 11, "there wasn't much they couldn't do and weren't doing. ... I invited them in when they were interested in participating."

Not all parents have the same "competency" mentality, or the same priorities.

"Hell, I don't even vacuum," said Melanie Turek, a technology analyst in Steamboat Springs, Colo., with three kids ages 3, 7 and nearly 10. "I'm most proud of the fact that my kids have always known never to bother us in the morning until we come downstairs."