In our house, we have (officially) started with chores.
My eight-year-old now has a set of tasks she has to help out with in order to receive her pocket money (€5) every Saturday, and her little brother (who is four), has also been delegated some (very easy) chores so that he will feel involved and learn the drill too.
The system is still very new, but so far, at least to my eldest, the lure of making her own money seems to do the trick, and she is eagerly cleaning the table and helping me sort laundry. As for how long this enthusiasm will last, it remains to be seen.
When it comes to my little boy, though, he’s not quite as sold on the idea of actually having to work for a living (and isn’t yet too concerned about having any money to his name either).
However, maybe I am not doing it right. Apparently, when it comes to getting our kids to help out around the house, we should all be taking a leaf out of Mayan mamas’ books, by involving our tots in chores we do ourselves – even if it comes at the cost of productivity.
In her time visiting the Yucatan for NPR’s #HowToRaiseaHuman series, writer Michaeleen Doucleff says she regularly observed toddlers engaging in chores, which gave way to children and preteens who voluntarily helped out around the house.
In chatting with the Mayan women, and later Barbara Rogoff, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who has studied the Maya culture for 30 years, Doucleff says it became clear this was less about setting out to get children to do chores and more about engaging with them in empowering ways.
According to Rogoff, instead of trying to control children, Mayan parents aim to collaborate with them.”It’s kids and adults together accomplishing a common goal,” Rogoff says. “It’s not letting the kids do whatever they want. It’s a matter of children — and parents — being willing to be guided.”
Doucleff, who tried the method with her own toddler, says the trick of to make an activity out of the chore – because when it comes down to it, kids love activities they can do together with a parent.
“Such contributions are tiny—and don’t really help me. But I can tell she is learning something golden: To love collaborative activities and working together,” Doucleff says.
As Dr. Laura Markham previously said for Motherly, kids appreciate having responsibilities. “All children want to see themselves as ‘response-able’—powerful and able to respond to what needs to be done. They need this for their self-esteem, and for their lives to have meaning.”
