to standards Bob and I could have achieved if we had spent all morning doing it while the children enjoyed sugared screen time. It looked remarkably good.
At the end, the children were disappointed. “Can we do more?” they said.
Children and teens consider it fun to demonstrate expertise parents don’t have. Youngsters can often out-perform adults in some areas. My children’s homemade cookies were always better than mine because they followed the recipe and added 100 percent of the sugar and butter.
I offered encouragement: “These cookies are delicious. Your cookies are always better than mine,” and ate several. Watching homemade food disappear quickly is powerful encouragement.
Like many Millennials, my teens were techno-savvy. Where would we be without our children to operate the remote controls, describe the latest online-gadgets and repair our computers?
Witnessing, encouraging and appreciating their contributions are more valuable than money or praise.
Dancing dust bunnies
Buy micro fiber socks or hand dust mitts. Spray lightly with water or water spiked with a tablespoon of vinegar (the best non-toxic antibacterial cleaning agent).
Crank up the stereo, put the socks on your children’s feet and dance while dusting the floor. Use old T-shirts and towels the same way to dry the kitchen and bathroom floors after mopping.
Blow up a volcano in the toilet
Children will fight for a turn to clean the toilet with vinegar and baking soda. Make a spray bottle of diluted vinegar (half water, half vinegar) and a sprinkle-can for baking soda. Drill holes in the lid of a plastic peanut butter jar or reuse another refillable container with holes in the top. Let them combine the two in the toilet.
Add a dash of both to the toilet and the fun starts.
Vinegar is low cost, environmentally friendly and eliminates 99 percent of bacteria. Baking soda makes things smell sweet and de-greases dishes and pots. Mixed together, they’re explosive – and fun.
Everyone helps at the Children’s Farm School
The Children’s Farm School in Lake Elmo, Minn., embraces chores and communal work. Preschoolers regularly tackle “big jobs” to maintain the farm and school building. Founded in 1974, the preschool is on a former dairy farm outside of St. Paul. The classroom is in the old farmhouse surrounded by fields, woodlands and ponds. The school’s philosophy is that children will learn, behave and become better people when they have a purpose. The daily routines are set up to incorporate chores.
“Big jobs” which require more than one person to work together include watering lettuce; winding up or moving the hose; hoeing or chopping weeds in the garden and moving them to the compost pile by wheelbarrow; making zucchini cake – sitting together to grate the zucchini and deciding together when there are two cups full; refilling the sand table, watering plants; assembling new furniture and more.
Teachers plan big jobs and are alert for spontaneous big jobs. They supervise, train, provide child-sized tools and create a cooperative and positive environment.
The children need no coercion to contribute. Instead, they rely on the Tom Sawyer factor. Children want to pitch in and celebrate the outcome.
For example, teachers start a day by providing shovels and spades for every child to help dig a diversion ditch to eliminate a huge puddle in the parking lot created from overnight rain.
Teachers asked the children, “Do you think the water is flowing in this direction?” “The children encouraged each other: ‘Deeper here,’ ‘Dig over there.’ No one wanted to stop until the problem was solved. The children cheered when the water began to flow out of the puddle.” (Source: Nancy P. Jones.)
The school facilitates a self-sufficiency that is unfamiliar to children who have been bred to be passive consumers while parents, teachers, day care providers and nannies scurry to eliminate challenges and avoid mistakes. Farm school pupils fulfill one of Adler’s basic human needs: to belong, be needed and be useful.
Teachers and observers notice that children behave differently after they collaborate to solve problems on real-life tasks to maintain their school and farm.
“Children who work together to drag a hay bale to the pony can better share toys in the sandbox. Hesitant children who are asked to help shovel snow become more confident when they later tackle new puzzles. Aggressive children who need to feel important become more friendly after helping pull cornstalks to feed to the pigs” (Nancy P. Jones.)
The Children’s Farm School shows that twenty-first century homes and schools can create opportunities for children to contribute by meaningful work without pay or praise, when adults foster a different attitude and encourage participation.
Adjust your expectations
Adults can often do a task better and faster than children. Resist the temptation to re-do their efforts. If you must re-do, do it covertly so as not to devalue their contributions. Lower your expectations and keep in mind the long-term goal. Have patience and accept and encourage their contributions. When expecting guests, I secretly touched-up the powder room. Bob volunteered to mow the lawn every third or fourth time because he wanted to cut the edges more carefully than the children did when they mowed it.During the time for training, I inspected their work and showed them how to do it correctly. Later on, I occasionally inspected their work to keep up the standards.
“The corners of the meatloaf pan are greasy. Can you please come back to the kitchen and do it properly?”“Who was on the dishes last night? Someone left a pot soaking. Please wash it now.”
“The toilet smells. Whose job was it to clean it? Please come back and spray the outside of the toilet and the floor around it.”
They grumbled on the call-backs, so I limited them. I enforced higher standards when I had time and energy.
Hire help or not?
Having outside help is a luxury. We hired a housecleaner when I went back to full-time employment and attended graduate school while the children were in middle and high school. The teens still had chores such as doing dishes daily and mowing the lawn, along with special projects such as painting a room. They supervised the youngest and drove her places.
After I finished graduate school and only two teens were home during the school year, Bob planned to escape the golden handcuff of corporate America. We made the family decision to stop the cleaning service and clean the house ourselves so we could save more money. Not only did the house get cleaner, $200 a month added up to $2,400 a year towards college tuition, plus taxes owed on the income.
Check your family budget. What are you spending on lawn care, cleaning and meals out that tweens and teens could be doing? Some employed parents delegate grocery shopping and cooking dinner to competent young people. It’s an opportunity to encourage them to take on complex tasks, contribute to the family, and gain confidence and competence.
Children of dual-career parents can have regular responsibilities, but fewer
