The other day, my daughter was in the kitchen. I heard a “Mom, can you come here and get the flour, please?” and my heart stopped momentarily, mostly because I was a little concerned that there was now flour covering the floor. She was standing at the counter with a mixing bowl and spoon, and she’d taken out the raisins, nuts, baking powder, and vanilla because she was going to bake. She couldn’t reach the flour. I let her put things together, with a modest amount of guidance about the recommended amounts of baking powder, and she created her own muffin recipe. She even put it into muffin tins. The next day, she brought some to preschool and gave some to her grandparents. I’m the queen of odd invented recipes, and I’m lucky to have a family who is willing to experiment along with me. I’m proud that my daughter is willing to experiment as well.
I think that we often underestimate the skills of small children. Yes, they are likely more interested in playing outside, playing pretend, and watching television than they are in doing the dishes – if it’s couched as a dull task. Now, I’m no Mary Poppins. I don’t dance around with a grin on my face that magically gets children to do housework. However, my daughter does help around the house. How do I do it?
I ask her to do things instead of telling her to do things. Of course, asking always opens the option of her saying “no”. However, I ask my husband to do household tasks, and I take the same polite tone with my daughter. When I ask her, she’s accommodating. When I tell her, I meet resistance.
I work with her. I don’t ask her to clean her room, because that is a big task. It also sounds like an arduous one. Instead, we bring the laundry up to her room, and we sort it together. Then we put it into the drawers together. I’m working, she’s working. I’m not exerting control, we’re just doing a task together.
We work on her projects too, and this gives her work respect. If she’s doing a craft project, I help her find materials. She initiates baking and cooking projects too. Strangely, she hasn’t initiated cat litter box changing or floor scrubbing yet…we should work on that!
Does your preschooler do housework? What do you do to encourage this?