One of the best ways to teach personal responsibility to our children is to help them learn to work, particularly with tasks that help support our family's mission. Many parents work on this principle when their children have chore assignments. Chores around the house have the advantage of helping get all the things done that are needed to make a house run smoothly, and they also teach accountability and responsibility.
Dr. Martin Rossman at the University of Minnesota has done some important research in this area. Dr. Rossman followed the lives of a group of young adults from their childhood to adulthood, and tried to identify the important determiners of adult success. His research showed that the best predictor of a child's success is that they began helping with household chores at the ages of 3 to 4. These young adults who started learning personal responsibility in their preschool years were less likely to use drugs, were more likely to finish their education on time, and had better quality relationships than the children who started chores later or had no chores at all.
About Fatherhood has a number of readers who are stay-at-home dads, many of whom have been through the process of assigning and following up on chore assignments with their children. So I asked them about the keys to success in starting up the chore process, helping motivate their children to work, and making the chore process effective in teaching personal responsibility.
Getting Started
Find the right time to start. Several dads recommended that if you are not having children do chores now, it is important to start when they are in a good mood. Schedule a family meeting on a weekend after a great breakfast or on an evening when the kids are home and can be relaxed. Trying to introduce the chore concept when they are already stressed is a recipe for failure.Start with a master list. Developing a list of all the jobs that are needed to keep your house functioning is a great beginning. Think about daily tasks like meal preparation, dishes, vacuuming, bedroom cleaning, pet care and so forth. Then list the weekly tasks like bathroom cleaning, weed pulling in the garden, mopping the kitchen floor, washing the family car and more. Getting a comprehensive list together may make the discussion overwhelming, but it is important to get the list right the first time.
Be prepared to negotiate. It is important when you share the list in your family meeting to be ready to listen to the children's concerns. Some older children may have jobs or big homework loads. Some jobs may be too big for the smaller ones. One dad I know even suggested giving the list to the kids and having them work together to divide them up-at least the work assignments will be balanced.
