Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The Rituals of the Daughters


Listening to: Spies – Coldplay
Mood: Mellow

Children are big on rituals and repetition. Anyone who has been a mom or dad for more than say a year has probably had multiple lessons in this.  Books that must be read a few times every night, movies that are compulsively watched until mom or dad feels like having his or her own tantrum and breaking that stupid disk already, questions that are repeated ad-nauseum. It’s all part of child raising territory.

The G household is no exception. My eldest isn’t so bad anymore, but even at 8, she likes to know the schedule and it should resemble what she expects. My 4 year-old however, has gotten into a “helpful” streak. You know the type, where the adorable kiddo wants to be helpful but really ends up making like complicated and drawn out for you because they want to do everything.

It has really been a struggle for me to just calm the heck down and let her do her ritual. Yes, she wants to help with the laundry and the only thing she really wants me to do is validate her button choices on the washer. Will it take me a half an hour to get one load of laundry into the machine? Yes, yes it will. Is that really a big problem in the long run? Absolutely not.

The thing that makes me just calm the heck down about everything taking about 3 times longer than usual is that kids are only helpful for a very, very short period unless you are a uber parent and can train them perfectly from birth. Even then, most 10 year olds will have times when they just have better things to do than be helpful, even if it’s something expected of them. I love it that she’s helpful and I’m hoping to stretch that out as long as possible. If I’m always rushing her and giving her the message that her help isn’t really helping, she’ll not want to do it anymore.

Another thing going on here is not that she wants to do chores necessarily, but that she wants to spend some time with me and do stuff with me. Since I don’t have domestic help that does everything, I do have obligations in our home. I also have online work that takes up a considerable amount of my day.  So productive time spent with my daughter? Yes, thank you.

There are certain chores, like cooking, that I can manage to talk my eldest into helping with, but it has more to do with spending one on one time with me than actual cooking. If her sister joins in, she’s out of there.
Here at the G household, we are trying to ingrain the fact that we do indeed all live in this house and that I, the mom, am not responsible for cleaning up after everyone all the time. There are chores, and we all help split the housework. As you can imagine, this was met by quite a bit of resistance when it first started and more than a little of me walking behind the girls and making them redo stuff that they had done 

incorrectly/sloppily. I’m not talking about nit picking here people. If my kid can bring the clean, folded laundry into their own room, they can put it in the closet where it goes. Even my 4 year old can manage this fine. So when it ends up piled on the bed instead – nope, go do it right. My kids like help when they do chores. So I usually try and plan our day so that ALL of us are doing work. I’m not doing their work, but I’m also not sitting on the couch watching a soap opera and eating bon-bons. Not that I get the chance to do that anyways, but at least they feel we all have work to do.  One of the best ways for kids to learn chores is helping their mom when they’re little.

It’s adorable to see how proud little kids can be of doing things by themselves also.

So encourage children to help. It gives them a time to do something with you and gives them a sense of pride that they can be both useful and helpful.  It also sets an excellent track for them to continue on in doing chores. An example:  If I ask my 4 year old for help putting away her clothes, she tells me I cannot help her. If I tell her she has to put them away, she tells me she’s busy.  Some rituals that kids have are beyond annoying, some can definitely be used to help their development.

Becky

2 comments:

Adrienne said...

You know, I have just recently started to really encourage the kids to help out. They are doing a great job! They're big now. There is no reason why I should be doing it all!

Becky said...

This has been a recent development at our house too, and I'm kind of ashamed that it took me so long to have my light bulb moment. I'm a stay at home mom, so I tend to see the entire household as my domain/responsibility. I can't figure out why it took me so long to expect them to help out! Definitely something I wish we would have done right from the start with our first child, but it's never too late. It really helps with the "free ride" mentality that my daughters get if too much is just handed to them without earning it.