I have found it to be quite common and even ‘the norm’ today for kids to not to do any chores, or to complain about the little chores they have to do. Some parents are quick to do everything themselves just to avoid the arguments or the nagging that can take place… but in the long run we must consider what type of adult we are actually rearing while we parent our children.
Children come into this world with a fullness, knowing who they are, open, and being very inclusive and embracing of others. As parents, we are offered the opportunity and responsibility to nurture our children to evolve, to be the ones who guide them as they grow into adults and to be all that they were divinely designed to be in this world – bringing their unique expression in full.
In our home, doing necessary jobs around the home has always been something that we have seen to be a very foundational thing that supports a child’s development. In the beginning, I used to think things like chores helped kids to be responsible, manage their time, learn about the value of money and understand that things in a house don’t just happen. But today I can see that chores, for kids, provide way more than that and actually, when communicated in a true way allow the grandness and brotherhood that they already come into this world with to remain there naturally so, while also setting them up to be purposeful adults in life, who know that their contribution and quality is valuable.
Our homes are like a training ground for our children. Participating in the home supports children to have the awareness to know that they are an equal and necessary part to the whole – that their contribution is an integral part for a community to work in the brotherhood we all know innately.
In our home, chores do not have an arduous label attached to them, nor are they communicated in that way. We have all come to see them as one way we can each support one another and consequently, our home environment, to be in the way that we all enjoy… an environment and space that allows our bodies to remain in their natural, surrendered and true way of being. Of course, our coming to feeling this way about chores was a process in itself.
However, it became a choice that made complete sense and was easy to feel when we brought it back to care and love. As parents of this home, it was clear to see and feel the support contributing to, and completing, daily jobs around the home offers children. They become simply one activity where children are able to express their innate quality of working together for the all.
In our home, we all know we enjoy a harmonious space that allows us to simply be: one that is clean and ordered and one that our bodies can surrender and feel at ease in. The way of being, the things we do and the way we do them all adds to holding this supportive space, and it is one that we are all responsible for, including kids. When other children visit and come to play, they too are a part of our family and the way the household works. And from what I have seen, they actually love the consistency, order and care and are more than willing to contribute to the quality of the space they are part of.
Today I hear from parents and kids about how much parents do around the house and how seldom young children are encouraged to contribute (e.g. children not taking responsibility for the space in their room or sorting their own school bag out), and how children don’t participate in the running of the home and activities in their later years, with parents at times feeling undervalued, with little appreciation shown.
By not giving children the opportunities to develop these skills and responsibilities earlier on, we can contribute to creating patterns and attitudes from teenagers that can feel self-centred, with them unappreciatively wanting more from life and others. With a supportive foundation, our teenagers are being offered to be helpful, understanding, appreciative and are able to contribute to life.
Our homes can be an amazing place where we guide our kids before they enter into the big wide world. A world that let’s be honest, desperately needs people who are loving, purposeful, there to be in true service and act in brotherhood.
It is part of parenting to support children to be able to not only understand life, but to be equipped to fully contribute and bring out their inner qualities, such as true love, true care and true responsibility to everything they do, to know who they are and feel confirmed that they are everything before they do anything.
Through each member of the family taking responsibility for jobs around the home I have come to massively appreciate all they offer a child. This is becoming more and more evident too as the years pass. Each of us in our home have things that we specifically do, while also attending to other chores if we see they need to be done to hold the care we have created in our home. We are also well aware of the unique flavour each one of us offers and appreciate each quality. We know the support working as one offers, and the appreciation family members feel from our help.
Today my daughter has a selection of chores that she completes each week, just as my husband and I also have our specific chores that contribute to our home. She also has a ‘job chart’ that she takes full responsibility for managing as she completes her chores. Since we implemented the chores in this way our whole family has grown in responsibility, and it has presented the opportunity for us all to:
- Build a good and true work ethic
- Meet life’s challenges and to work through them
- Understand the value of other people and to be open to asking for help to clarify
- Know that we are capable of doing whatever we choose to do
- Be part of a group working together
- Feel the value in doing our part within the whole
- Understand instructions and complete things
- Build a rhythm and consistency each day
- Develop a sense of responsibility
- Understand the importance that simplicity and repetition offer us in life
- Have the space and time to feel how our flavour supports the whole.
As adults – all adults – it is our responsibility to offer our kids the most practical guidance and reflection possible. This may sometimes be something our kids don’t like to step up to, but with loving understanding and a holding of consistency from us, they begin to see that it comes from love.
We are raising the future and it is our homes and schools that are the training grounds for our children who will one day be the adults sharing themselves with the world, and it is our responsibility to support our children to know themselves in full and letting their natural brotherhood and essence shine through.
By Johanna Smith, Bachelor of Education (Major Special Needs, Minor Psychology, Graduate Certificate of Early Childhood, Studying Diploma of Counseling, Esoteric Complementary Health Practitioner, Woman, Teacher, Mother, Wife and Friend.
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To Be Truly Heard and To Be Truly Met For Who We Really Are
689 Comments
In my experience in British secondary schools students are not generally encouraged to tidy up after themselves. In a number of schools I have worked in, it is senior management or cleaners that go around the campus picking up litter and tidying up. This does not send a message to our children that they need to be responsible for their own messes. This is reflected out in society. A colleague of mine recently went to the Glastonbury festival. I was horrified to find out that hundreds of people choose to leave all their tents, belongings and rubbish behind because they can’t be bothered to deal with them and pack them up. What kind of society are we creating when we are not teaching children the basic 101 in terms of personal responsibility?
When everyone contributes there is an ease in the home because no-one is ‘bearing the load’.
If we don’t make chores seem boring or hard work children love to help and join in. Making life fun and playful. Who could resist that?
I love how you write that all adults have a responsibility to all children, to reflect a way of living. We don’t have to be parents to do that. Some of the most influential adults around me as a child were not my parents.
‘Our homes are like a training ground for our children.’ So true. Hence teaching responsibility and consequences is so important.
This is so important for us to ponder on and put everything in action that supports a child or young person to be who they truly are ‘in the long run we must consider what type of adult we are actually rearing while we parent our children.’ Even if we are not a parent we have a responsibility to the children and young people we meet and that are in our lives.
Children love to learn and children love challenges and chores if they don’t we need to ask what are we projecting onto them (our own ideals and beliefs around housework and chores because otherwise left alone our little people love to help.
I love this blog, it is so important in fact It would do well to give a copy to all expecting mothers. Imagine our society if we brought all children up to live this way.
Any child who is brought up to be truly responsible will become an adult that contributes fully to society in a way that will inspire others to also live the love they know.
I so agree. Children who don’t have that opportunity when young can find responsibilities in adult life hard to take on board.
As parents we have a responsibility with what we share with our children, ‘ I can see that chores, for kids, provide way more than that and actually, when communicated in a true way allow the grandness and brotherhood that they already come into this world with to remain there naturally so, while also setting them up to be purposeful adults in life, who know that their contribution and quality is valuable.’
Yes I think this point about feeling valuable is a good one because children are often told all the things they are not doing whereas if they are part of contributing from an early age, they see they contribute equally to the support that is offered in the home.
We can shun responsibility now but what are we leaving behind for everyone else to clean up?
Exactly. And if we shun responsibility then what are we reflecting to the younger generation .. that you do not have to be responsible or accountable! So yes we have a huge responsibility … which definitely does not have to feel heavy or a burden! From experience it is actually the opposite in feeling lighter and more joyful.
“As adults – all adults – it is our responsibility to offer our kids the most practical guidance and reflection possible” I love this word – “Practical” its so important and actually often missing in our education.