How To Motivate Children To Collaborate At Home?
Motivating children to collaborate at home is a challenge that many families have to deal with every day. Many parents often decide to do household chores themselves to avoid conflict with their children. However, did you know that collaborating with housework encourages the learning of values and skills in children?
Collaborating at home benefits children
The graduate in philosophy and science of education Joseph Knobel, appreciates that the importance of children collaborating in household chores is that these will be their first responsibilities in life.
The importance of children collaborating at home is not only reduced to maintaining a clean and tidy home, but also to teaching values and skills that will be very useful for the future:
- Responsibility. Although they do not enjoy doing housework, children will feel more responsible when they complete a task successfully because of that comforting feeling of satisfaction.
- Negotiation skills. Know how to present your ideas, communicate clearly and try to reach an agreement.
- Teamwork. Learn that sometimes, to achieve a goal, it is necessary to cooperate with others.
- Sensitivity and empathy. When your children help you with cleaning, they discover and understand the hard work that goes into maintaining a home.
- Independence. By collaborating at home, they will learn to do household chores effectively for the future.
According to best – selling author Dan Pink, housework is good for kids because it shows them that families are built on mutual obligations, and that ultimately, family members need to help each other.
Five ways to motivate children to collaborate at home
1. Start the task with them
One of the most common mistakes parents make is that they expect their children to know how to do homework, either because of its simplicity or because they think their children have seen them do it. Many times, all children need to start helping out at home is for their parents to teach them how to do housework.
For example, picking up toys from the room may seem like a simple task at first glance. However, your child may not know where to place them correctly, which will likely frustrate him and ultimately decide not to. So instead of scolding him, try asking him if he needs help. The trick is to help him get started on the task and, little by little, let him finish it.
2. Everyone should have responsibilities
One of the most important aspects when educating a child in the performance of household chores is the division of responsibilities in the family.
Children must perceive that all members of the household have their own responsibilities, depending on each one’s ability, of course.
It is important to know how to choose the appropriate tasks that we want to assign to the children. For example, choosing a task that is too complex for his age can be frustrating, while an excessively easy task will end up boring him.
3. Let them be more and more autonomous
As in a company in which the boss does not give his employees an opinion and their autonomy is annulled, the same thing happens in the family environment.
It is essential to give children the opportunity to express their opinion. By allowing them to speak their minds, you build self-confidence and gradually build your sense of self-reliance.
As children feel more autonomous and independent, children will be more motivated to take over household chores and perform them much more effectively.
4. Teamwork
Make sure that, when you want your children to do a household chore, coincide in time when all the family members are collaborating at home.
Your child will feel part of something and, by working as a team with his family, his motivation to collaborate will increase. In addition, by doing it together, you will ensure that the housework is done correctly.
5. That collaborating at home is another habit
Teach them from early childhood the importance of collaborating at home. Little by little, the children will assume and normalize their responsibilities to, finally, make them a habit.
If you establish a certain weekly time to dedicate to the organization and cleaning of the home as a family, you will be building a family habit together.
In this way, your child will understand that collaborating with household chores is necessary and, finally, he will observe it as a routine, as something normal, seeing that all the members of the family collaborate to maintain the proper functioning of the home.
It also benefits the family union
Lastly, getting your children motivated to collaborate at home can also help build strong family relationships. The division of tasks and responsibilities will alleviate family burdens and tensions, which will lead to reducing family stress.
Ultimately, if we motivate children to collaborate at home with household chores, they will feel like part of something bigger than themselves, while learning valuable skills for their future.
