Oftentimes, when someone new finds my post… and sees that I’m teaching exhausted moms how to empower their kids to notice what needs to be done in the home without waiting to be asked…
it’s common for them to immediately say something like:
“But my kid just doesn’t care about household tasks.”
First of all, I understand this response.
It’s coming from a place of feeling frustrated, unseen, and the ever-default for all the necessary tasks in the home that, conveniently, nobody else “cares” about…
tasks and chores that you always have to be stuck with doing on your own…
indefinitely.
And that’s an incredibly discouraging and lonely place to be. I’ve been there.
When it comes to teaching your kids to be proactive home contributors…
I want to let you in on a little secret:
Kids don’t have to care about household tasks in order to do household tasks.
They’re kids. Of course, they don’t care about cleaning a bathroom or emptying a dishwasher.
Hell- I’m a 39-year-old adult and I don’t care about that stuff either.
I mean…does anyone genuinely care about household tasks?
I don’t do the laundry because I “care” about the laundry.
I do the Laundry because I understand that doing Laundry…
is a basic Life skill.
Whether or not I personally care about it is irrelevant.
Household tasks are simply neutral expectations that come with being a human.
Just like kids learn that brushing their teeth is a basic life skill and daily expectation that comes with being a functioning person…
they can learn that proactively contributing to the teamwork of managing a home…
is also a basic life skill and daily expectation that comes with being a functioning member of the whole family team.
So what does this look like, practically- speaking?
We throw the “need to care” expectation out the window and, instead…
implement a proven and simple structure that teaches your kid how to notice what needs to be done in the home without waiting to be asked…
and then we allow for the Learning process to be a process.
Your kid has probably never once cared about brushing their teeth…
but you still taught them how because you know it’s important.
AND. Your kid never has to care about household tasks…
and you can still teach them how because you know it’s important.