Jake learning yet another skill.

When I first began my homeschooling and homesteading journey, I read a book about Home Management.  The author advised training children to do a task well.  Who could argue with that?  She highly discouraged anyone from doing the task for them again.  Ever?  Wow!  At the time I had three children, and I really took her advice to heart even though I don’t follow it to a “T.”

Last week I saw a friend of mine.  Through our conversation, she mentioned that she was still bathing her daughter.  That fact really struck me.  Her daughter is eight years old!  In my opinion, she should have been bathing herself for at least three years.

“But, what about her hair?  How is she supposed to scrub her scalp and rinse out the shampoo good enough?”

My response is teach her.  I am, of course, assuming that the mother washes her own hair without any assistance.  It is possible to do.  My daughter and I both take care of our own hair.

Now, there is no magic age in which all children are able to do certain tasks on their own.  As a parent, you know your child better than anyone else.  You know of what your child is capable.  However, you have to look for tasks to turn over to them.  You need to find ways to teach them responsibility.

Mothers sometimes have a hard time letting go.  We seem to thrive on being needed.  We like the idea that no one can do the job as well as we can.  But who pays the price?  Our children do.

Recently I was told a true story about a young woman who moved into her dorm room as a freshman.  She looked like the average young woman, but she was paralyzed with fear.  Who was going to get her up in the morning?  Who was going to arrange and organize her room?

Guess who showed up to save the day.  Her mother!  She swooped in and did everything for her daughter.  It saddens me that this girl was completely unprepared for life.  She had not learned to take care of herself in the almost two decades she lived under her mother’s care.  She did not know the meaning of responsibility.

I fear this story, though extreme, is more commonplace than I imagine.  I occasionally hear mothers proudly boast that they “do so much for their children.”  I do a lot for my family, too, but not in the way these mothers mean.  Using their meaning, I do very little for my three oldest children.  I think that we need to shift our focus.  If you insist on measuring yourself against others, do not measure yourself by what you physically do for your children.  Instead, measure yourself by what your children can do.

I teach my children by example how to work.  As babies, they watch me perform the day to day household tasks.  Later, I begin explaining to them what I am doing and why.  Then when they are able, they help me.  As we work together, I explain in more detail the steps necessary to complete the task.  Later, they are assigned the task and I supervise the job.  Soon, they are ready to perform the task by themselves.

What a freeing moment for me!  What a sense of accomplishment my children gain!  How exciting to learn how to care for one’s self!

This blog is dedicated to leading a more self-sufficient life.  It sounds great, and it is rewarding.  And as parents, we need to make sure that we are raising self-sufficient children.  If you think that you do too much for your child, you probably do.  It is not too late to change.  Start small.  Choose one task and begin there.  Working in small steps ensures that your children will not be overwhelmed and will enjoy a rewarding sense of accomplishment.    Responsibility should be the 4th “R” in our children’s education.

As an example, I am listing some of the tasks my eight year old son performs on his own.  Jake:

• keeps his room clean
• does his own laundry
• feeds and cares for eight different types of animals
• cleans toilet and sink in the guest bathroom
• makes coffee for me on occasion
• makes an omelet, fried eggs,  and/or scrambled eggs
• catches and cleans fish
• occasionally bathes his 2 year old brother
• showers or bathes himself, and
• packs his own bag when he travels.

As his mother, I take pride in what Jake can do for himself.  I am constantly looking for new and more challenging tasks to teach him.  I encourage him to learn to cook so that he can always have a good meal.  I tease him that his future wife might not be a good cook.  I tell him that he will most likely be a bachelor at some point.  I explain that sometimes his future wife will be sick.  I try all different explanations to show him the need to know how to cook.  He is learning to be independent.  Currently he is baking cookies with my loose supervision.  Soon he will be able to do them on his own.  Then we will move on to something else, something that interests him like grilling.  Unlike the young college student, I hope to celebrate my children’s leaving the nest knowing that they are prepared.  I want to be able to say that I taught them all the skills that they will need.  I want them to be self-sufficient.

Tags: 4th R in education, parenting, raising children, responsiblity, self-sufficient

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 6:18 am and is filed under Homeschooling, Homesteading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.