Don’t Forget About Chores
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Please take a look at these videos (above) of my 26 month old grandson, Lachlan, doing one of his chores and learning another. This first one is a chore that he owns that helps his dad out in his office.
As I have often stated, chores are the route to independence, learning about and working with intention, responsibility, service, contribution, self-worth, attention span, development of motor skills, becoming highly capable, and on and on. Don’t underestimate what your children can do or the importance of them doing it.
Guess what this grandfather got his little grandson for Christmas? Would you believe a real metal snow shovel? This video (above) shows his first experience with it. A few lessons are needed.
I started my first business, a snow removal business, when I was eleven. I had two employees and made enough my first winter in Philadelphia to buy myself a nice boat. Don’t underestimate what your children can do. The more independent the become, the more they initiate on their own.
One of the tragedies of what most people call “education,” which has children sitting in a classroom (or for many today, looking at a computer screen) for six hours a day and then often doing homework on top of that, is that there often is not enough day or energy left for parents to teach their children about little things like values, the importance of family, or to give children time to initiate and learn to love reading and learning, or have ownership of chores, and to derive all of the benefits of them. We are producing many 20 year old narcissistic children who spent 12 or more years plugged into a curriculum that was not targeted to them, that was filled with things that they forgot within weeks, and that deprived them of the ability to learn and develop those things that are needed to turn them into successful adults.
Don’t forget about chores.
—Bob Doman
Reprinted by permission NACD Newsletter, January 2022 ©NACD
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