Revisiting Chore Assignments
It's a good thing I have older kids to keep me on my toes with raising their younger siblings. This week the older ones have decided (rightly so) that Paul, 10, needs to move up in chore responsibility.
"Mom, don't you think Paul ought to be added to the dishes rotation? He needs more work!"
"Yeah! I started doing dishes when I was seven!"
"So did I!"
"Me too!"
And so it went. Each summer I take a look at chore assignments, bump up the younger ones to new jobs, and rearrange the flow. I hadn't even begun to think about this when the conversation related took place. When you have a young family, you rely on your oldest children heavily. That's why the oldest kids tend to be hyper-responsible and capable. But we're at the other end of things now, and it's easy to become lazy (or just plain worn-out) with the youngest children in a family. In addition, having already trained the older ones, thing flow pretty well, and making changes will shake up the system.
But shake we must, if our little guys are going to be equipped for life and know how to work hard. Because I'm thinking of this topic, I'm going to take a look at notes I made a few years ago for a talk on teaching children to work, and hope to write a few posts on this subject.
Now for some fun. Our family enjoys many of the short films made by the Josts, a family from southern Alberta with eleven children. This one is about Post-Traumatic Dishwashing Disorder.
"Mom, don't you think Paul ought to be added to the dishes rotation? He needs more work!"
"Yeah! I started doing dishes when I was seven!"
"So did I!"
"Me too!"
And so it went. Each summer I take a look at chore assignments, bump up the younger ones to new jobs, and rearrange the flow. I hadn't even begun to think about this when the conversation related took place. When you have a young family, you rely on your oldest children heavily. That's why the oldest kids tend to be hyper-responsible and capable. But we're at the other end of things now, and it's easy to become lazy (or just plain worn-out) with the youngest children in a family. In addition, having already trained the older ones, thing flow pretty well, and making changes will shake up the system.
But shake we must, if our little guys are going to be equipped for life and know how to work hard. Because I'm thinking of this topic, I'm going to take a look at notes I made a few years ago for a talk on teaching children to work, and hope to write a few posts on this subject.
Now for some fun. Our family enjoys many of the short films made by the Josts, a family from southern Alberta with eleven children. This one is about Post-Traumatic Dishwashing Disorder.
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