5 Reasons You Should Teach Your Children to Help With Chores
What a busy week last week was!
Last week looked like this as these kids were put to work volunteered (actually, it was a little of both 🙂 ) to help me clean our abode. 😀
I told Justus to look tired or dramatic at different times depending on what pictures I was taking. This was his interpretation.
Children are capable of so much but sometimes we want to protect them from being overworked and the results are kids that don’t know how to work, don’t like to work and feel entitled. In other words, we aren’t doing our children any favors when we do everything for them. They should be contributors to our households.
5 reasons we should teach our children to help around the house
1. Children want to help when they are little.
Don’t miss this opportunity. They love to feel they’re helping mommy and training children when they are little is so much easier than trying to correct bad habits of laziness once they are older. Give your children some responsibilities, work with them and watch them blossom – especially when they’re little. It’s much more fun when mommy is working with them and during that time you can tie strings of fellowship – telling them Bible stories, singing children’s songs together or just listening to them talk to you. (They like to do that!) 🙂
3. Children will be happier with some responsibility.
I always feel best when I have accomplished something in a day. Although it may sound nice to have days with no responsibilities, after awhile it can feel very unfulfilling. Contributing to the household will give your children a sense of satisfaction. When daddy comes in the door at night, brag on your child and the help that he/she has given during the day and watch what happens. They will love feeling they did something valuable.
3. They are learning real life skills.
Do you know there are many kids who never learn some of the basics of cleaning? They have no clue how to clean or how to be clean. How much better it would be if they learned these skills while at home and in their childhood instead of moving out and being faced with this kind of learning curve and the other responsibilities that will come all at once. And don’t forget, we are doing our future sons and daughters-in-laws a favor when we help our children know how to help and we can always use the brownie points!
4. Problem solving, organizational and thinking through to completion skills are all benefits.
How can I best clean this hard water stain? What steps do I need to do to complete this task? How can I complete this job more efficiently? Teach your kids to think through these steps and this pattern of thinking will carry over to other areas.
5. The benefits and rewards are coming.
Although you may have to take extra time teaching them these skills, in just a short while they will be pros at it and if it’s needed, they will be able to do these tasks on their own without you even being there. Remember though, they always enjoy it much, much more if you are there working with them.
And after all that cleaning?
Well, those same hard working kids enjoyed a week of time off!
I even managed to have a few days off, enjoying some day trips to historic towns around here with some new and old friends from Norway, along with my childhood friend.
And another trip to the Grand Canyon where we rented bicycles and rode along the rim. Great activity!
And we even had a couple who were on their honeymoon from the state of Kentucky drop in for an evening.
Be diligent now in the raising of your little ones and watch what happens.
Galatians 6:9 says, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
And the old saying, “many hands make light work”? Completely true.
Did you have responsibilities when you were a child? Do you agree that children should have chores?
