|
Last week my daughter, after a
conversation with some school friends, said, "I get so angry when
my friends tell me they don't have any chores to do."
"Because you do and you don't
think it's fair?"
"No, because they will be such
irresponsible adults and I'll have to live in the world with them!"
Even a teenager is capable of
understanding that in order for someone to become responsible, they must
have responsibilities. This is the exclusive job of the parents, and
cannot be shoved off onto the schools, churches and babysitters.
One way to build responsibility and
competence is to assign regular chores. The moment my children could
walk and hold a toy at the same time, they had chores, even if they were
as simple as "Let's pick up these blocks together now that we're
finished with them." Why? I'm lazy. I hate housework. When people
tell me they don't give their children chores, I wonder if they really
like housework that much. (Oh yes, I also want to teach them
responsibility.)Now it's true that initially it is more work to make the
children do chores than to do them yourself, but that won't last
forever. One day they will wake up and understand how to clean their
bedrooms (literally, it seems like.) One day they will clean them
without being told. (Not always, but sometimes.) If you spend a little
time preparing them to be homemakers-male and female-you can save hours
of time later.
When I was ten, my mother was hospitalised
and my old-fashioned father naturally put me in charge of the
homemaking. My aunt provided meals, but I was supposed to clean and
watch my younger siblings. The first day, I looked around the house,
baffled. I had absolutely no idea what my mother did all day. She did
all the housework herself while we went to school or played outside. It
was then that I vowed never to put my children in that situation. A
teenager should be able to completely run a home without help if
necessary. That means boys should be able to cook and clean. Girls
should be able to fix a leaky faucet or put oil in the car-and the other
way around.
You can't just turn the house over to
them without preparation. Instead of giving the children in your family
specific chores that they always do, try rotating them. My children
decided a few years ago to divide all the chores they were responsible
for into three groups. They rotate between the groups every month. To
me, one of the groups seems easier than the other two, but as they
pointed out, it gives them something of a break every third month. It
comes out evenly in the long run. They completely clean the living room,
dining room, family room, hallways, entry ways and their bathroom. They
set up their own plan so that everything gets done thoroughly during
their month.
They all fill in on the chores the
adults have when we get overwhelmed with school, work and other
challenges. They fix meals on a regular basis (some better or more
enthusiastically than others, but no one goes hungry). I feel quite
certain that if I died tomorrow, they could run the house without any
help at all.
Under the current system, policing
isn't much of a problem. Peer pressure solves it for me. "My
friends are coming over today. If you don't get your living room clean,
you are dead!" The threats they offer each other take care of the
motivation. If this isn't an effective tool for you, you need to decide
in advance-perhaps with your children-the rules of the chores. When do
chores need to be done? What constitutes a special exception? What will
happen if someone neglects a chore? You know what I'll say next: Make
the rules, and then stick to them.
Because we don't have chores that have
to be done on a set schedule, my children set their own chore time
unless we are expecting guests. If they know they have a busy day coming
up, they simply make sure the chores get done the night before. There
are days when we just skip the chores altogether. (It's unlikely that
someone will die if the vacuuming waits an extra day.) If someone really
special comes over, the children sometimes decide together that the
family room, which can't be seen by adult guests, can wait and the
family room cleaner can help the living room cleaner. They work out the
entire system. I just appreciate the help.
Now, admittedly, it takes a while to
get to that point. Remember, we've been doing chores for almost 18
years, and we're pretty good at it. If your teens have never had chores,
they may go into shock at the concept of working for free. Tell them you
are helping them prepare to have their own apartment. If you don't, tell
them they can't move out until they master all the chores in the house.
I would consider 30 minutes a day to be
a reasonable amount of time for teens to spend on chores. Some of that
can be active childcare if you have little ones as well, or helping
younger siblings learn to do chores. Once a week, plan on a family work
session to cover anything not handled by the regular chores. I don't
normally include cooking in that half hour. It is done by me if I have
time, and by whoever is available otherwise. The children each have
specialties which only they can do "best." If the family wants
a specialty, they politely ask the expert to fix dinner that night. If
it's a hard specialty, they sometimes agree to cover that person's
essential chores. All those hours of teaching have paid off when dinner
is served and cleaned up by someone other than me!
Enjoy the extra time you gain!
|