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The perspective making derived from sharing time and other resources with loved ones does not take hold when teens are assigned household chores.
Our family tries to help other people. One subsequent boon, derived from this sharing of time and other resources, is that we get to shift our perspective from that of egocentric to that of sociocentric. Such changing, in turn, makes it easier for my family to appreciate our actual life “wealth.” Unfortunately, the same perspective making does not take hold when our teens are assigned household chores.
It is difficult for the kids to see beyond the piled up clothing on their bedroom floors or beyond our mutually accrued sinkful of dishes. Contributing to the smooth function of our family home is not as interesting to the local adolescents as is providing free babysitting for someone else’s ever expanding brood or as is collecting money so that another family can eat.
Whereas I used to fuss over how to make home-enhancing tasks more “meaningful,” I no longer invest energy in such framing. My epiphany is that it doesn’t matter if my children don’t like every job that I assign to them. It’s okay if some of the hours, in some of their days, are seen, by them, as socially irrelevant.
First, maturation includes accepting some goings on that we don’t like. Home chores can be a training ground for emotional maturity.
Second, duties teach us. From home tasks, the wee ones can learn both time management skills and how to actualize specific processes. Such empowerment is wonderful, as well as is vita. Too many times my teens have returned home from visiting others teens and have wondered, aloud, why some kids can’t cook their own dinner or clean up the main living space; my antagonists hate matching socks, but appreciate that they will be equipped to take care of their own apartments.
Third, “family” is a historically legitimized social unit. Social units award their members not just privileges, but also responsibilities.
Whereas I don’t ask my ten year-old to bake broccoli quiche, to wash the delicates, or to initiate a phone call to his grandparents, there is no reason why his seventeen year-old, his fifteen year-old, and his twelve year-old siblings, respectively, can’t perform those tasks, or why he can’t water the windowboxes.
Fourth, mastery fuels self-esteem. Tracking the dust bunnies beneath the sofa does not compete, with any immediacy, for an adolescent, with time spent listening to an Ipod. Yet, knowing when to deadhead posey, or how to “invent” yet another pasta sauce, can put a smile on even the most cynical of youthful faces.
I believe that it is important to be persistent in handing out jobs to our kids. Explain and demonstrate, if necessary, but don’t hold back on the growth opportunities. Our children need us to insist that they separate the recyclables and hose down the removable windows because they need us to help them reach the next life stage.
Tags: parenting chores responsibilities family
empowerment self-esteem |
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