Consider asking your child the question, “If you had to leave your family for a long time, why would everyone miss you when you were gone?”
Of course your child would be missed because they are loved. But, is there anything important that your child does for their family? Does your child feel like a significant and useful member of their family because they contribute in some way?
I know my question sounds odd, because we are not accustomed in this day and age to expect our children to be useful. Our ancestors would certainly be surprised at that. Parenting didn’t always mean providing care to children with only love expected in return. When families grew or caught their own food, children were expected to work alongside other family members in the fields, barns, and kitchen. Millions of children worked in the mills and factories of the industrial age. If fathers lost their jobs during the Depression, children very often took on part-time jobs—such as running errands, delivering groceries, and selling newspapers—to help support their families.
No one would want to return to the days of exploiting children’s labor or a national economic collapse. But it’s worth thinking about one benefit those hard working kids had in the past that many of today’s kids don’t have: they had the experience of making an important contribution to their family and knowing that their family needed them.
When children see themselves as someone who can contribute to their family in a meaningful way, their self-esteem grows on solid ground. When parents treat their children as people who can be trained and given responsibility in the home, they’re strengthening their children’s character as well as helping them learn the skills to be more self-sufficient.
If, on the other hand, parents treat their children as incapable of learning how to help and take on responsibility around the house, just the opposite can happen. When little is expected of children, children learn to expect little of them selves. Developing character and independence doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Children who have always been served will always expect to be served.
As someone once said to me, “If you believe your child will grow up to live in a palace, then raise them like a prince or a princess. If you think they’re going to grow up to live in the real world, you’d better raise them to know how to take care of themselves!”
We give and do so much for our children not because we want to make them weak, but because we care so much for them. Asking our kids to pitch in and lend a hand sometimes seems like too much trouble or it takes too much time. If the child pouts, whines, or complains—it is even harder! It is true that adults can often do most tasks faster, and even better, than a child. Yet, even when they grumble, everyone benefits from children who are trained and given opportunities to contribute to their family.
This is because children really do enjoy a sense of accomplishment and skillfulness when they learn how to be more self-sufficient, rather than continuing to be dependent. But even more importantly, children who contribute in tangible ways to help their family also have a stronger sense of personal significance. As author Jane Nelson has suggested: “Wouldn’t it be great if every child in American went to bed knowing that their family was better off because they are a member of it?”
You may be reading this and think, “This sounds ok, but my kids will never go along with this!” It may well be true that your children will respond with complaints if they haven’t been trained or expected to pitch in up to now. But, the reality is that most children really do believe that it’s important for kids to help with the work around the home. A 2001 study of over four thousand teens from around the world found an amazing 97% agreed that children should be involved in household chores. Over 70% of the American teens thought children should have household chores because it would help them learn responsibility and self-discipline.
I’ve learned from my own experience that agreement doesn’t always equal cheerful willingness. While many kids think it is fair that they contribute to some of the family chores, they often think it’s just as important to grumble some and not make it too easy for their parents. (I suspect that this is their way of putting the brakes on Mom or Dad, just in case they think they can dump all the work on the kids.) When I blew up at my son one day for complaining about the job I had just asked him to do, he replied patiently, “Mom, it’s just m-e-l-o-d-r-a-m-a!” Ok, I decided, I can live with melodrama—just as long as the dish-washer gets emptied.
Emory Luce Baldwin, LCMFT, is both an experienced parent educator with the Parent Encouragement Program (PEP) and a Family Therapist working with families with children and adolescents in Takoma Park and Kensington. On March 13, PEP will host its annual “Self-Sufficiency Fair” to train young children in a variety of practical skills from room cleaning to home repair to etiquette. Reservations required. For more information, contact PEP at 301-929-8824 or visit www.ParentEncouragement.org. To contact Emory, call 301-681-2043 or go to www.emorylucebaldwin.com.
