We've started asking our children to assist us in household chores. We've slowly added to their responsibilities over time with first setting expectations on them for things that relate to them. For instance, their dishes should be put in the dishwasher after meals and their place cleaned. Their water bottle should be put back in the refrigerator and, and this is a hard one for some reason, refilled as needed. I don't know why refilling their water bottle is so hard, but they just don't want to do it.
They've had to clean up toys and other things they bring out every day, completing all cleanup prior to bed for several years. They also have to put blankets away. My children love blankets. They have multiple fuzzy blankets on their beds and we keep several in a cabinet beside the television in the living room. They regularly pull out blankets, drag them around the house and then leave them on the ground when they move on to do something else.
The blanket abandonment is so regular I estimate I put up three to four blankets each day. I told them I was done picking them up and putting them away. They now have an allowance penalty of fifty cents every time I find a discarded blanket. I've given them warnings for the past week which has been enough to have them start thinking about putting their blankets away, which was the whole point.
Laundry is another item we're asking for help with. I have two full loads today that need to be folded and put away. My daughter came into the bedroom and I explained how both she and her brother were going to help with part of the laundry. My daughter flatly said, "no I'm not." I told her this wasn't an option, it was something they were going to be doing to help out today. She said, "I won't be."
So I put my firm voice on and told her that yes, she was, but she could choose to help now or later, which did she prefer? "Never" was the answer I got. I said it sounded like she wanted to have me do all the work to put up her clothes and did she want to have clean clothes to wear or would she prefer to have nothing available in her drawers? She didn't care about clean clothes, she told me. I said that was fine, but she needed to understand I wasn't available to help her, at all, until she helped with the laundry.
The next hour was interesting. She contacted me on Alexa and on her new watch (which she is able to use quite well for a variety of things already). Each time I told her I would be glad to help her, only it would be after she helped with the laundry. She wanted to make a "boo bag" for our neighbor and could I help her find a halloween bag in the attic. When I told her I could, after she helped fold the laundry, she said, "nevermind, I'll figure it out." We kept on in this manner for a while, me saying I couldn't help and her deciding to figure it out herself.
Then she came to me with an idea. What if she put the dishes away from the dishwasher that had been run last night? Would that count as helping? I said it would. She asked for some help becasue she didn't know where everything went. Could I put some of it up? I said she could put up what she knew and to call me when that was dond and I'd show her where the remaining items went. Then after she put them up she'd know where they went the next time.
She rode her bike for a while, did some of the dishes and then asked for help with lunch. It was getting late for lunch so I agreed to help get her some pasta and told her she had been doing a good job as I saw a lot of the dishes were already put away. My daughter has finished her lunch and is currently listening to a story on Alexa. She said she's going to finish the dishes in a while.
My daughter has demonstrated she can be more independent if needed, which is good for her. She also selected something she wanted to do to help, showing she has initiative as well. It's been interesting saying no repeatedly when she asks for help for things. And yet she's not upset about it because she knows she's putting off a responsibility she's not getting out of. We've both learned a lot today.
The Big Boy Update: This morning I went out to get coffee and brought back food for my children. I went upstairs to let me son, who was still asleep in his top bunk, know that food had arrived. Mt son rolled over and reached his hand out to grab mine. He said, 'Mom, you are one of the most important people to me in the whole world. If you died, I would cry. And then I would kill myself so I could go to heaven with you."
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter did a good bit of reading while visiting with Mimi and Gramps this week. My daughter likes constant company and from time to time my mother would want to take a break and suggested my daughter read her books. After what must have been a good bit of reading mt daughter said, "Mimi, I'm tired of reading, my fingers hurt." My daughter, not understanding how adults don't have the same energy level of adults asked Mimi after once when my mother said again how she needed to lie down for a bit, "Mimi, did you lie down this much when Greyson was here?"
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