Children must help with the housework from 6 years old: yes or no

About 40% of Russians think that children should help with household chores from the age of 6. And they are wrong. In most cases, trying to take on the responsibilities of a 6-year-old, parents will face strong protest and stubborn reluctance. Labor is important, it teaches self-discipline, self-organization, elementary cleaning and cooking are the basic tasks of any person.

How to accustom a child to the household without threats and scandals? Success is in the hands of three magic dogs, as in the fairy tale “Flint”:

• timely start of training,
• emotionally positive background
• freedom of choice.

When to start

It is enough for parents to catch the baby’s interest on time, in order to avoid notations and quarrels later, in order to easily and competently accustom their child to the household. In fact, children clean an apartment enthusiastically when they are about 2 years old.

It is enough to support this initiative with praises, regularly assign small things to the assistant (wipe the table, wipe the floor after washing dry, put the spoons in the tray, wash your own, unbreakable dishware). This should be done regularly, praise for help, notice how it became more comfortable, more pleasant, better in "our", "your" house. This will gradually form a skill and consolidate knowledge: cleaning = comfort.

Personal experience
It’s useless to read notations to a 6-year-old that cleaning gives comfort. These little experimenters don't believe anything until they test it. If time is lost and the skill is not fixed, the best option is to agree or ask for help. At this age, they want to be heroes, so it will be nice to take care of mom.

How to bribe, and whether it is necessary

The second condition for successful study is positive emotions. First of all, we must not forget: cleaning is a game that adults play. Sit on the sofa among candy wrappers, toys and spots on the upholstery and floor. Do you like it? Not. This means that we clean the apartment not because we “need”, but because we want cleanliness and comfort. Therefore, learn to feel joy and pleasure, if not from the cleaning itself, then from its result. Children are like a sponge, they absorb these positive emotions, and their attitude to household chores will be positive.

And yes, for the baby, cleaning looks like an intense or exciting game: parents take strange, but very interesting things and do something with them. The child wants to be “like mom” and “like dad”. Therefore, he takes the same things and tries to perform the same manipulations. Let this be a game in which the child is an important figure, and you are his apprentice.

This is especially important because it teaches a small person to take responsibility and clean up, not because they “need” or “mom forced”, but because he is the main person, he controls the comfort of the house and takes care of his neighbors.

This is one of the options for the game that suits the children leaders. And there are still empathic children. They are fundamentally important emotional, psychological and physical contact, relationships, interaction.

In a family with such a child there is no “I” and “he”, there is “we”: “We have to eat”, “We want to collect toys to jump on the fitball”, “We want to wash the dishes so that it becomes clean and beautiful” . This is a little more complicated, because everything, literally everything mom does with the child. Due to the fact that there is no separation of duties, things can take longer.

Important
Focus on the process, on the fact that the baby helps. An excellent result is a matter of practice, no more.

Up to 10 years, the child is important not the result, but participation: the praise and approval of the parents. Over time, the dishes will also start to wash faster, and the puddles on the floor will become smaller, because experience and skills will constantly train.If you ruin the initiative with criticism and nit-picking, it is likely that help will no longer happen.

Criticism should be rare, in essence and as friendly as possible, for example: “Oh. This is the ocean we have left. And let's dry it, so as not to get it wet ourselves. "Hold a dry rag, whoo, now it's all about beauty!"

It is positive emotions, praise, awareness of one’s heroism or involvement, joy from the comfort that one has received and should be incentives for the child. Any others will lead to a dead end.

Let's talk about money, going to the movies and walking. How much money do you yourself get for washing dishes, preparing breakfast and dinner, sweeping floors or starting a robot vacuum cleaner? Not a penny. On the contrary, spend yours - on electricity and gas. So why should a child do the same for a fee? And another nuance.

What do you say to the objection: “Do I already have an ice cream”? How then to bribe a baby? Same thing with going to the movies. A walk - in general, cannot be an object of commerce, fresh air and communication with peers is the legal right of any person, both yours and your child.

Interesting experience
It absolutely did not work with the eldest daughter, but it worked perfectly for the youngest. Quite often I recited poems about “Moydodyr” and “Fedorino Gora” by Chukovsky (because it’s a great rhythm there + this is not much that I remember by heart). The baby was so imbued with solidarity with rattle brushes and “poor” dishes that washing and bathing became a matter of principle for her. Sometimes you have to stop, so that your hands do not dry out with water and do not erase dishes to holes.

Choose carefully

Freedom of choice ... Divine gift. Even the slaves had minimal will, for example, to step on their left foot or on their right. So is it possible to deny this right to your own, beloved child? Of course not.

An American child psychologist, author of the most famous books on the upbringing and development of self-discipline, B. Koloroso offers to arrange a family council and together discuss who cares about what kind of household chores.

For example, a daughter likes to cook more, and it’s easier for mom to sweep the floors in the room - why not cooperate? A 6-year-old girl is quite able to cook buckwheat or semolina porridge, heat the finished dish in the microwave, fill and turn on the electric kettle.

Of course, if the gas stove, you can’t do without your mother’s help, but still. And mother, while cooking or after breakfast, will calmly sweep the floors, not worrying that "children still need to be fed." This is an ideal option. But there are always responsibilities that no one in the family loves. Here it is necessary to agree to execute them in turn or to share a bag of cones equally among all.

Interesting fact
Buddhist monks use routine, monotonous work to meditate and realize the cyclical nature of life and processes in the universe. And Agatha Christie, while washing dishes, thought over the murder scenes for her famous stories. Monotonous work helps to rhythmize movements and breathing, free thoughts and the subconscious.

However, freedom of choice has a flip side - it is a personal responsibility. Do not stand over the child and do not repeat 20 times that you need to warm up lunch. Everything is simple. Say that you are already a little hungry and ask to put the soup in the microwave for an hour or two (this is usually enough for the child to finish the game, watch the program or talk on the phone and calmly switch to another activity). But if the child forgot, you can well sit next to your rumbling belly and remind yourself: “I want to eat like that!”

Both small and adult people are more willing to take responsibility for those things that they themselves have chosen for themselves. Have you noticed how zealously the kid is repairing a tower of snow, which he himself appointed an outpost?

Household duties are not hard work at all. This is an interesting game that you can play with the whole family, and a powerful blaster that destroys the enemies of coziness, comfort and joy.This is a real space adventure in which a positive attitude, mutual support, faith in success and the ability to choose weapons and tactics are important.