Children and Chores…
““If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders”.”
Many parents inquire about the Parenting Power Program or school that we offer because their children suffer from low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, behavior problems, and/or neurodevelopmental conditions. One crisis in this country that has become trendy is sparing children responsibility in the attempted effort to make their lives easier. This only makes the parents’ lives easier. The good news is that there are key developmental skills that can be built to help prevent the issues above, and help ameliorate them, if present.
CHORES performed by the children in Khamrada’s Hope School and/or in any program at Cockade Stables are required for the BENEFIT of the children, not the ease of teachers and staff. The EASIER option for staff would be to perform chores themselves, rather than teach, supervise, and assist the children in their completion. It takes significantly more time, effort, and patience to have the children complete the chores with our help.
CHORES build good character and help equip children to deal with frustration, adversity in life, and delayed gratification. For example, our school rescued some chickens earlier in the school year that were very sick. They had to be isolated, treated daily with medications, and receive special care. These efforts were time-consuming and there were no guarantees they would live. Only one chicken died and the remaining lived to be very healthy chickens. The children who cared for them were eventually rewarded with the results of their hard work, but it took months for their feathers to grow and for them to achieve a healthy weight. In a world with so much immediate gratification, means of delayed gratification is significant to good healthy human development.
Teamwork makes the DREAM work!
Chores build character and develop responsibility!
The character-building pieces of chores, and the subsequent resiliency created, are made possible by the feelings that are experienced when accomplishing chores. If you ask any good parent, he or she will say “Yes, I want my child to have good character.” However, today’s parenting trends are producing the opposing outcome. Parents consistently reach out to me, concerned that their child(ren) lack empathy, respect, communication, accountably, self-esteem – the list goes on. Once I spend some time assessing the lifestyle and parenting styles of these families, more often than not, it is clear why their children lack good character and/or have emotional struggles. Why? The further away we transition from how God intended us to learn and grow, the farther away we will be from overall health and well-being. How do we learn how to empathize if we are robbed of the opportunity to consider someone other than ourselves? How do we learn how to respect someone else if it is not demanded or exemplified? How do we learn accountability for our actions if we are never held accountable for them? These developmental pieces are NOT developed as a child ages. I’ve never really understood why parents think eventually their children will “grow into it” or “grow out of it.” A lack of something does not eventually equal to an abundance of something. A bad habit or underlying problem will ALWAYS exponentially worsen with time.
People often discount the role of responsibility for children. If I received $1.00 every time I have heard from a parent, “I want my child to enjoy his/her childhood, not have to work”, I would be a billionaire. The missing piece for these parents is the assumption that chores are a punishment, instead of a gift. Chores should NEVER be a punishment for bad behavior. Chores should be required at all ages, developmentally appropriate chores, because they are opportunities for healthy developmental growth. They provide opportunities that we cannot otherwise provide. Without having responsibility, you cannot learn how to be responsible.
If we told our students here at school that they would no longer have chores, they would probably have a meltdown. I am not exaggerating. Why do they love chores?
They experience a sense of accomplishment that makes them feel good about themselves.
They have the satisfaction of knowing they contribute to the maintenance and well-being of the animals and the facility they love.
They learn that the best play and the best fun activities are earned; work hard, play hard!
It is beautiful to observe so many character traits that are natural consequences of children having chores that they are responsible for. Over time, you begin to observe them holding themselves accountable as much as you do. You see them taking initiative for responsibilities that are not theirs. You see them choosing the “right thing” more often than avoiding tasks because “that’s not my trash” or “I didn’t leave that out.” You see them offering to do chores that they are not assigned to. You see them offering to help someone else perform a chore that is not theirs.
When children do not live in homes where adults expect them to contribute to the household (i.e., dishes, cleaning, laundry, caring for pets, etc.), there is an entitled need to be recognized for every effort they make. In school here or in our other programs, we witness the children’s external need to be rewarded and recognized for their accomplishments, regardless how little they may be. Examples such as, “Did you see what I did?”, “I helped her, did you see?”, “He walked by that but I picked it up”, are common.
When children do not receive any reward other than the learned satisfaction of their accomplishments, we begin to observe the transition within them. As we adults guide by example, recognizing with gratitude and not reward, we allow for the growth of healthy intrinsic satisfaction for each child. They begin making better choices, they begin working harder, they begin caring about the quality of their work because it feels GOOD. That’s it, it’s that simple. This is when internal motivation begins, and we begin observing amazing behaviors that truly make us proud. The ultimate in this development is when a previously selfish child chooses to make a point that a peer did something exceptional. How altruistic is it when a child seeks no recognition but the satisfaction of knowing someone else is recognized? A child who desires for a peer to be recognized, and simultaneously not need to be recognized for his/her own accomplishments, has grown significantly in emotional intelligence. I love when I can express gratitude to a child for practicing integrity when that child had no idea anyone could see what he or she did. We, as teachers, find ourselves saying to one another, “Did you notice her today?”, “Did you see what he did this morning?”, “Wow, that was amazing.” Seeing is truly believing.
The internal rewards, resulting from chores, that are experienced by the children assist in moral development as well. The better the character of the child, the more he or she is trusted and deemed reliable. For example, a child comes to us and says, “I messed up. I put hot water in the chicken waterers. Will it hurt them?” The child has learned the value of honesty and accountability because he or she has faced the consequences of lacking both. Sometimes these consequences come from the natural consequences of their actions and the consequences we provide. In his or her emotional growth, the child has chosen to be honest and has accountability for the mistake. As a result, the child will observe any natural, negative consequence that may arise from the mistake; however, he or she will experience the positive experience of earning our trust. As trust grows, privileges are earned. As in adult life, the better choices one makes and the more responsible one is, the more privileges earned and opportunities available.
The primary goal of focusing on chores in our school is for character-building. Because we focus on the “whole child”, all parts of their well-being is important. Academic development is crucial to their life-long well-being. The skills that are developed when the children successfully learn how to complete chores are the same skills that are necessary for math and reading success. When children learn how to complete and manage chores successfully, it helps build teamwork, time-management skills, organizational skills, good work ethics, self-reliance, and problem-solving skills. Children also learn how to improvise because the chores must be completed despite supplies lacking or something breaking.
When solving a math problem, for example, organizing the numbers correctly and being able to adapt to different ways of solving the problem may be the only way to doing the problem correctly. Additionally, being able to compensate and improvise when reading is the only way for some children to successfully read. How do they know how to improvise, compensate for any struggle, or simply “figure it out”? Well, I think you know.
