More Than a Chore: Getting Things Done the Right Way
This isn't about treating your children as slaves, piling tasks on their small shoulders and seeing how much they can handle. Neither is it about treating your children as employees, paying them for every chore they complete. Rather, chores are opportunities for kids to learn lessons about life. Financially intelligent parents use chores as ways to help their kids gain self-respect and take pride in a job well done. These are lessons that will ultimately help these kids excel in whatever career they choose. They will learn early on that a job well done is its own reward, and that a parent's compliments and other rewards (getting to go out and play) are secondary benefits. In short, they will be autotelic—they will possess an inner drive to do well rather than be dependent on external motivation.When your children are three or four, they are ready to handle simple tasks. No matter how long it takes them to learn to master even the simplest of chores—putting their dirty dishes next to the sink so Mommy can put them in the dishwasher or helping Daddy take the garbage out—they are starting to think of themselves as members of a family in which everyone contributes to the whole. These are the kids who are more likely to grow up and be adept at working on teams and establishing productive partnerships.
They also learn to delay gratification through doing their chores. They grasp that they can't go out and play until they clean up their rooms. John Gray, PhD, in Children Are from Heaven, ranks learning to delay gratification among "essential life skills," and for good reason. Many of these kids will turn into adults who save their money for something important, such as buying a house or putting their own kids through college rather than purchasing the plasma television or fancy sports car they can't really afford. Being able to prioritize is a gift parents can offer their young children; you'd be surprised by how many parents don't give this gift until their children are teenagers, and by then it's more difficult to learn.
Though it's great if you can come up with interesting chores for your kids to do, mix in some mundane tasks. Everything in life isn't exciting; there are many absolutely necessary but routine chores waiting for us. Tolerating a certain amount of boredom is a life skill. Sometimes you have to sit through a boring course in school before you qualify to take an interesting one. Sometimes you have to work at a boring entry-level job to be qualified for a more challenging one. With these concepts in mind, review the following eight tips on how to make chores educational, enriching experiences:
- Exhibit a positive attitude when you do your chores.
- Assign chores to various family members according to interests, or convene a family meeting and let the kids participate in the decision-making process. If your kids are very young and you assign the chores, try to take into consideration their natural talents. Is your daughter nurturing? Have her help feed the pets. Does your son love the outdoors? Have him help you with the gardening. When the children are a little older, have a family meeting in which you outline what needs to be done around the house. Let the kids participate in figuring out the basic chores—from doing the dishes to raking leaves to keeping the family room clean—and who should do them.
- Do some chores alongside your kids. Family chores become a battleground when kids think their parents are foisting work off on them so they can relax. So pitch in. Communicate that chores are part of everyone's life. Raking leaves or shoveling snow with your children may seem like ordinary activities, but doing them together transforms them into something meaningful and even fun. Shared chores like these also foster a sense of teamwork.
- Help your children integrate chores into their routines. As your kids grow up, they will have other responsibilities—homework, sports, private lessons—that seem to have a higher priority than household chores. They need to practice juggling the low-priority tasks with the high-priority ones. When they become adults, juggling personal and professional responsibilities, little tasks and big ones, is constant. People who do it well tend to lead balanced, successful lives. Start your kids out on the right foot by teaching them that they have to allow five minutes in the morning to make their beds and clean their rooms and a half hour on weekends to do some yard work. Show them how they can create a schedule for their week on the computer or by using a calendar.
- Share your chore expectations. Children internalize their parents' expectations; these expectations are usually more powerful than consequences. Let your kids know that you expect them to pick up after themselves, that picking up is just a given in your family. Sharing your expectations provides you with the bulletproof answer when they ask why they have to clean up their room when their friend Charlie doesn't have to: "That's the way we do things at our house."
- Foster accountability for assigned responsibilities. In other words, you want your kids to feel a sense of accomplishment for doing their tasks the right way and on time; you also want them to recognize that they are responsible for the consequences if they fail to do so. One of the best ways of achieving this latter goal is by linking consequences to the nature of a given chore. If you get stuck trying to figure out how to do this, think of Johnny and his chair.
- Don't link allowances or other rewards to family chores. One of the most common mistakes parents make is paying kids for doing chores, often in the form of an allowance. While you want your children to understand that a job well done receives rewards, you don't want them thinking that they should be paid for fulfilling family responsibilities. This creates a sense of entitlement that can carry over to adult life. When you find an adult who works only for the money—and who refuses to stay one second after 5 p.m. because "I don't get paid any more if I stay late"—then you're probably looking at someone whose parents fostered this sense of entitlement.
Financially intelligent parents resolve the paradox of chores and rewards in the following way. They divide chores into two categories: F (family) chores and X (extra) chores. The F group involves routine family responsibilities necessary to keep the household running smoothly, such as washing dishes, taking out the trash, making the bed and so on. The X group involves tasks that you might pay someone else to do: washing the car, mowing the lawn, babysitting a younger sibling. The X group generally requires more time and effort, and kids understand that they are being rewarded for their time and effort rather than for their routine family responsibilities.
- Avoid constant criticism as your child learns to do chores the right way. A hypercritical, judgmental parent who thinks she is instilling a work ethic in her children is going to have exactly the opposite effect. She'll raise kids who resent their chores and try to get out of doing them. If they can't get out of them, they'll rush through their tasks and do a slipshod job, or they'll learn to procrastinate. Constant criticism makes kids feel that they'll never do a good job, so why try? They'll internalize the notion that they're not good enough, and as they become older they may feel the same way about school and jobs.
Recognize that kids face a chore learning curve and that they learn at their rate, not yours. Once a chore is assigned or selected, show your child how to do it. If your child makes a mistake, don't rant and rave. Be calm and show him again how to do it, and tell him that the next time, he'll do it right. And when you see him doing it right later on, don't simply accept the result as something he's supposed to do. Praise him for doing it well. Too many parents notice when their children do something wrong; not enough notice when they do it right.
At one of our seminars, Adrienne recalled that when she was five years old, she started helping her mother separate the laundry. She loved the feelings of being helpful and competent. When she was six years old, Adrienne received a new chore: watering the plants in the window boxes on the patio. The first time she watered them, the water pressure through the hose was too high, and mud and water spattered on the windows. Instead of showing her how to adjust the water pressure, Adrienne's mother yelled, "Can't you do the simplest thing right?" Adrienne said that she hated family chores from that day forward.
Be aware that constant criticism from an older sibling can also do damage. Some rivalry and teasing among siblings is normal. An older brother or sister who is constantly criticizing the way a younger sibling is doing her chores, however, can devastate the younger child. Take the older one aside and ask how she would feel if the roles were reversed and she was the recipient of constant criticism from an older sibling. Most of the time, this is enough. If it isn't, you may simply have to monitor the situation and intervene when the older sibling is being hypercritical.
Kids watch their parents like hawks, and they won't miss your sullen response when your spouse asks you to fix a broken doorknob or to go to the store for a gallon of milk. What you say and especially what you do sends a strong message to kids, and even a subtle response—a furrowed brow, an exasperated sigh—will encourage kids to mirror your attitude. You don't have to be phony about it and pretend you can't wait to haul the garbage cans out to the street. You can, however, avoid negative gestures that suggest chores are beneath you or something to fight about with your spouse.
Johnny, age five, was driving his parents crazy by rocking his chair back and forth at the dinner table. Meal after meal, Johnny's parents would first ask him to stop rocking and then tell him to stop. Meal after meal, Johnny kept rocking. And why not? It made him the center of attention and put him in control of what was being talked about. One night when Johnny came to dinner, his chair was missing. "Johnny," said his father, "since you can't use your chair correctly, we've had to put it away." "What am I supposed to do?" asked Johnny. "Eat standing up," replied his mother. After a day of eating breakfast, lunch and dinner standing up, Johnny got his chair back and never returned to his rocking.
If Johnny's parents had threatened to take away his television privileges, the consequences would have been divorced from the action and would have had far less impact. Therefore, if your four-year-old's job is to put his toys away in the evening and he keeps forgetting, the consequence might be that he can't play with them for a few days. You might explain that if he is old enough to take the toys out of the toy box, he is old enough to put them back in before bedtime. If your fourteen-year-old daughter keeps forgetting to empty the dishwasher after dinner, wake her up thirty minutes earlier in the morning to put the dishes away before breakfast.
Let's start off with a surprising truth: Pressuring your children to get straight As does not help them develop a work ethic. It may increase their stress to off-the-chart levels, but it won't help them gain satisfaction from achievement or become self-motivated. Elisabeth Guthrie and Kathy Matthews, authors of The Trouble with Perfect, note that children need to take chances and possibly fail if they are going to develop a strong sense of self. When parents turn up the pressure on grades, they encourage their children to play it safe in order to achieve a highly ambitious goal. As a result, they're not willing to write a paper on a topic that really turns them on; they'll choose a topic that they think will turn the teacher on. When kids are obsessive about achieving perfect grades, not only are they less willing to take risks, but they're less creative and spontaneous than other children.
Pushing kids too much is a universal problem. An October 15, 2003, editorial in the Korea Times discusses how graduates of Seoul University burn out from the intense pressure to achieve at school. The editorial writer advises parents not to "force your children to study too much too fast. Let them go at their own pace. Nobody pushed Einstein, and he turned out all right."
While you want to encourage your kids to work hard at school, your focus should be on motivating them to do their best rather than be the best. Consider the following pairs of be-the-best (B) and do-your-best (D) parental advice:
B: I know math isn't your top subject, but if you study an extra hour each night, you can get an A.
D: I know math isn't your top subject, but pay attention in class, ask questions if you don't understand and do all the homework, and you'll be fine.
B: You're not going to get into one of the elite colleges unless you quit spending all your time playing music and focus exclusively on your schoolwork.
D: You need to find a balance between playing music and doing your homework.
B: We're spending a lot of money sending you to private school, so we expect your grades to demonstrate you're grateful for this opportunity.
D: We hope you'll take advantage of the opportunities to enroll in classes and do the type of projects that are unavailable at public school.
B: It's good that you received a 97 on your fifth-grade English test, but with a little more effort, you could have received 100.
D: Ninety-seven is a terrific score; tell us what you wrote about.
B: To be the top student in Mrs. Jones' class, you need to talk to her, figure out what she's looking for and give it to her.
D: If Mrs. Jones expects you to do a project a certain way, but you feel strongly that there's a better way to do it, that's okay with us, but we suggest that you talk to her about your plans.
Beyond distinguishing between these two types of advice in your school-related discussions, you can do a number of other things to facilitate a work ethic:
- Communicate through your actions that you believe it's important to make a solid effort at school. It's essential that you not just say that you believe it's important, but that you take actions that reinforce what you say. To that end, make sure you create a quiet environment for your child to do his homework—set rules regarding interruptions such as phone calls and online communication. You should also provide your child with resources for doing well at school—dictionaries, encyclopedias, online access for research purposes. Attend school open houses, parent-teacher conferences and your child's school-related activities (sports, plays, music).
- Involve yourself in (as opposed to just observing) your child's schoolwork. This doesn't mean that you should do the work for him, hover over him while he does homework or correct every mistake on every paper he brings home. It does mean that you should make yourself available when he asks for your help. Assist with drills and help him learn to prioritize assignments. Don't just talk about homework, but also ask whether graded papers or projects were handed back, what tests and class projects are coming up and so on. Double-check with the teachers on a periodic basis to make sure that your child is handing in all homework and to find out what grades have been handed back recently.
Some parents believe that their children don't want them involved in the school process. Don't believe it! Jacquelynne Eccles, a professor of psychology at the School of Education of the University of Michigan, has studied programs designed to foster parental involvement in their children's schools. Her research discloses that children want their parents to be involved.
- Initiate conversations about school-related ideas. Too often, parent-child discussions about school revolve around grades. Instead, focus on ideas raised in school. Talk about the subject of an essay your child wrote, or about what motivated her to do a particular drawing, or about her feeling that she should be allowed to do an assignment her way. Your willingness to listen to her as well as respond with your own ideas will demonstrate that you admire the passion and energy she brings to her schoolwork.
- Encourage your children to participate in extracurricular activities that excite them. Some kids aren't particularly excited by their academic classes but exhibit great interest and aptitude in other areas: music, art, computers, sports, ecology clubs and so on. Developing a work ethic around subjects that truly interest and involve kids is important. Certainly, they also need to learn how to work diligently when subjects aren't interesting (just as they need to learn to complete even mundane chores properly), but extracurricular activities offer an avenue to work hard at and take pride in something they relish. When they do participate, be careful not to dismiss or devalue their efforts. Don't say, "I'm glad you enjoy band, but you're probably not going to make your living as a musician, so get your priorities straight." Even if your child doesn't become a musician, his experiences playing in a band will show him how hard work pays off in greater proficiency at an instrument, and he'll take pride in his accomplishments. This is what a work ethic is all about.
Other parents encourage their kids not to get jobs. They believe their son's and daughter's job is school, and that they should devote all their time and energy to excelling academically. Summers are for summer school or to pursue private lessons or to relax and reenergize after a grueling school year. The notion here is that children acquire a work ethic in the school environment and that it eventually transfers over to the work environment.
Neither group of parents is wrong, but we've found that there's a middle ground that better suits the needs of most children. While some teenagers are driven to find jobs out of financial necessity and other teenagers are so academically overwhelmed they couldn't work even if they wanted to, most teens can benefit from some exposure to the workplace. Before we talk about teens, though, we'd like to talk about work and your elementary-school-age child.
No, we don't believe in child labor. At the same time, we've found that when kids learn about jobs during the industry developmental stage (six to twelve years old), they tend to have a better grasp of what work means and the choices involved in terms of careers. Perhaps the best resource we've found for kids during this stage is Take Your Children to Work programs. Admittedly, some of these programs are worthless—you take your child to the office, stick her in the corner with her crayons and paper and, except for snacks and lunch, ignore her while you do your job. Over time, however, various groups have become more savvy about how to structure these programs to benefit children.
The Ms. Foundation for Women's Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work program, held annually in April, encourages offices to "adopt" entire classrooms for the day, allowing them to become part of a given office culture for that day and really experience what work is like. The East Central Illinois Women Attorneys Association sponsors an annual mock trial on Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day in which kids serve on a jury and decide whether Rumpelstilskin has a case against Queen Mallory for failure to pay him for spinning straw into gold. At Cardservice International, a large credit card processing firm, kids get to create computer-generated logos, and Cardservice managers evaluate them and pick winners.
If your company doesn't follow an established protocol for kids at work but you want to take your child (and your boss approves), we recommend doing the following:
- Start out showing your child what you do. Give him a tour of the workplace and let him see some things you're working on. This will acclimate him, allowing him to appreciate the work environment that until this point he's only heard you talk about.
- Assign him a work-related activity. Obviously, you need to tailor the activity to his age and attention span. It may be something as simple as sorting papers into folders or using the Internet to find information about a work subject. Whatever it is, give him a specific task with a clear goal and time limit.
- Talk to him about the activity. Ask him whether he thought it was easy or difficult. Determine whether he enjoyed doing it. Praise him for what he did well and suggest other ways he might have gone about it.
- Open up about how you do things. Share a work failure and a work success. Let him know how you felt when you got chewed out by your boss for sloppy work. Tell him how great you felt when you came up with an idea that everyone at your company loved.
Even if you can't take your child to your office for some reason—you work at home, your boss discourages bringing children into the workplace—you can still take advantage of the previous suggestions. If you can't take your kids into the office, bring the office to them. Take pictures or make a video of your workplace, and then share it with your children. You can use the video or photos to inspire a game of "playing office" with your kids. Invariably, these visual aids will stimulate them to ask you the types of questions they would have asked if they had actually visited you at work. If you work at home, your child may be familiar with your work space, but the odds are that you've never taken her beyond the surface of this space; she's seen you typing on your computer keyboard or talking on the phone, but you've left her in the dark about what you were typing or whom you were talking to. Now, let her sit next to you and help type a report or search for information on the Internet. If you have a phone with a speaker, turn it on so your child can listen to the type of conversation you have regarding your work. Again, this will stimulate her to think about what you do for a living and ask questions.
When it comes to teenagers, don't expect them to find a job that might help them achieve specific career goals. While it's great if your daughter wants to be a doctor and she obtains a job as a volunteer in a hospital, most adolescents don't know what they want to be when they grow up, and even if they do, few part-time jobs will help them get there. Instead, teenagers often obtain menial jobs to earn extra cash—cash they use for clothes, dates and so on. Even a menial job, though, can contribute to the development of a work ethic. Your child may not want to grow up to be the manager of a fast-food restaurant, but being an employee of one allows him the opportunity to learn skills that will help him no matter what career he chooses. Whether he's taking orders for burgers or bagging groceries, these jobs call for him to learn how to function as a member of a team, how to interact with customers and how to relate to a boss. Perhaps more significantly, a job is an opportunity for your child to see a direct correlation between his effort and his performance. At school, kids may try hard at subjects that they're not particularly good at, receiving average grades. At work, effort often translates into good performance. Your child will feel a sense of accomplishment when his boss tells him that he did well, even if doing well involved nothing more than getting a customer's order right.
Financially intelligent parents recognize how these menial jobs build a work ethic. Help your children learn from their experience by
- treating the job with respect. Don't sneer at the job's tasks or pay or look down your nose at the position. Instead, engage your son or daughter in conversations about hamburger-cooking procedures and shelf stocking without condescension.
- allowing your child to make job decisions. You're going to be tempted to intervene when your child is searching for a summer job or having to deal with a problem at that job. You'll want to tell your kid to choose job A over job B or how to handle a temperamental boss. While it's terrific to offer your child ideas, let her be the decision maker. Allow her to choose the job or figure out how to deal with his boss. Kristen, age seventeen, was working for the second summer in a row as a bagger at a supermarket, and she was doing a good job, filling in when the store was shorthanded and often working beyond her shift when it was busy. She was being paid the same hourly wage she earned the first summer. Kristen felt that she deserved an increase but told her parents she wasn't sure whether she should ask for one, how to ask and when. Her financially wise parents engaged in a Socratic dialogue, asking her questions such as, "What's the worst thing that can happen if you ask for a raise?" Finally, Kristen did ask and was granted a two-dollar-per-hour increase. Her parents said they had never seen her prouder of anything she had done.
- limiting their hours during the school year. Some kids will want to work long hours because they want money for a car or some other luxury. As a financially intelligent parent, you need to help them achieve a balance between work and school. The teenager who works hard and takes pride in both his schoolwork and his job is more likely to develop a solid work ethic than the kid who focuses on only one area. Limit your child's work time to fifteen hours or less per week during the school year, and that should give him time to achieve the proper balance.
If you need any more motivation to help your child develop a work ethic, consider a fifty-year study by sociologist J. S. Clausen. He found that children who learned what he called planful competence in early adolescence had more stable, satisfying careers and fewer midlife crises and divorces as adults. Planful competence means being dependable, having self-confidence and using intellect to solve problems. Kids who exhibit a strong work ethic have these qualities in spades. They learn how to do things right and to think before doing. This helps them avoid the impulsive, thoughtless decisions adolescents are prone to make, and it helps them acquire an area of expertise when they're older.
We don't intend to make a work ethic sound like an exact science. Some kids develop it early and some later. Some may go through a prolonged adolescence of underachievement until a specific event catalyzes their desire for fulfilling work and meaningful success. Some may drift from job to job until they hit upon a field that is their true calling.
As a parent, you can't control these factors. What you can control, though, is how you help your children learn about jobs, school and chores. If they learn to value a work ethic, they will probably use it to achieve success and satisfaction sooner or later.
From The Financially Intelligent Parent by Eileen Gallo, Ph.D. and Jon Gallo, Ph.D. Copyright © 2005 by Jon Gallo and Eileen Gallo. Used by arrangement with Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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