Children Who Do Too Little By Patricia Sprinkle
In the book Children Who Do Too Little, Sprinkle
has researched creative ways to assist parents in motivating children to do
chores around the house with minimum resistance. This book refers to chores as “learning
skills” and reminds us that in order for a child to become a successful adult,
basic skill are best learned in childhood.
The ideas of Dr. Robert Barnes, a family and marriage counselor are
shared, in essence his thoughts are that
the delegation of household learning skills lets children know that family life
is important, and through these tasks team work is learned.
Noteworthy suggestions
of this book are to be consistent with expectations, set clear rules and
consequences from the start, have a chart as a reminder, teach step by step
breaking the chore into smaller pieces, working alongside of your children, and
remember to give praise, encouragement and gentle suggestions, it is important
not to redo the child’s work, and realize that “no one way is ‘right’ for every
family.
It is common
for parents to want to do all the household chores themselves, while allowing
children to study, take lessons and play.
The author gives the reminder to “Teach your child a skill today. A skill is a gift that last forever.” There are eight areas of learning skills and
are worth noting: personal care, clothing
maintenance, Food preparation, lawn maintenance, house maintenance, minor house
repairs, budget management and car maintenance.
Parents can
benefit from the suggestions on how to make the work fun; age appropriate hits
consist of games such as “beat the clock”, allowing teens to choose the music
while the jobs get done and swapping assignments.
This book is an
easy read, well organized and packed full of practical information on how to
teach children responsibility, to one’s self and one’s family that in turn will
benefit society as a whole when the child grows up to be a productive
responsible adult.
~Peggy
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