Chores

So Z does chores.

She has almost always been doing chores and we have never be okay with her complaining or displaying a bad attitude about her chores.

When she was still crawling (so before she was 9 months old) I used to keep her books on the bottom shelf and her toys in baskets on the floor. Before bed we would play a "game" where she would crawl her toys and books back to their home. To her it was just another game - kids like putting things in baskets. :) It became second nature to her to tidy up after herself.

Now I don't mean to say that she doesn't kick her shoes off and leave them in the middle of the floor or brush her hair and leave the brush on the dining table. But when I ask her to put her things where they belong she does it without any hard feelings because it is ingrained in her that things belong in their place.

(Does that sound anal? *grin*)

When she was still in diapers she started helping me do the laundry. Then, as now, Z was my little shadow and wanted to do everything with me. So when I started doing Flylady and began doing the laundry every morning Z was right there and wanting to help. So I taught her how to sort the laundry into colors, darks and whites.

Soon after that she started putting the sorted clothes right into the washer and adding soap.

When she was 3 she attempted to make her bed every morning. You couldn't bounce a quarter off of it by any means but that wasn't the point. It was more about making her a member of our home in yet another way. She is not just a child but a member of our family that was capable of providing a useful service.

When she was 4 she was really into The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. She loved me to give her a rag and order her to scrub the floor. Seriously! She learned a lot about applying elbow grease to various jobs around the house during that phase.

At some point last year she got tall enough to put the dirty dishes in the sink and now she is even rinsing them and putting them in the dishwasher.

She also makes her own lunch sometimes and helps her father cook. She watches over the cats and does a great many other small things for us and for herself.

Sometimes it makes her proud and sometimes she doesn't feel like it. But, just like Pere and myself, she has learned to take care of her responsibilities with a good attitude and I think that is so important. Not to be preachy but I don't see many kids learning this lesson these days (or even in my day) but I think being of real use to your family helps provide true self-esteem to child and young adults as well as preparing them to some day live successfully on their own.