Kids are wired to want to learn things. Learning is fun, because play is semi-structured learning.
You can see this in other species too, where pups and kittens play at hunting and fighting, and it comes with a number of important corollaries.
First one is that a major part of this learning experience is emotional, not just technical. You’re not just teaching your child to wash the dishes, you’re also teaching them how to feel about washing the dishes. If you act like chores are something to be avoided, your kids will learn that from you. If you resent your kids not helping, they’ll learn that too.
Second is that kids never stop learning, so you never stop teaching. If you act like you resent chores all day, then try to act enthusiastic about doing them as a way to get your kid to help, they’ll catch on to the deception really quickly.
Third, your kids are not always learning the lessons you want to teach them. If you want to punish them for misbehaving, don’t do that by giving them chores. Chores = punishment teaches the exact opposite of what you want them to learn!
> First one is that a major part of this learning experience is emotional, not just technical. You’re not just teaching your child to wash the dishes, you’re also teaching them how to feel about washing the dishes. If you act like chores are something to be avoided, your kids will learn that from you. If you resent your kids not helping, they’ll learn that too.
That really works! When my friend was a kid, his older sister pretended that vacuuming the apartment (something she was made to do by the parents) was the coolest thing in the world. As a result, my friend was dying to take the vacuum from her and do the job himself.
When my daughters were young I introduced sardines as desert. When we would go out to the swimming pool and friends' parents would suggest ice cream, by daughters would ask if I brought sardines.
Think about how much of our preferences, be them food, politics, or religion, are learned. We absolutely could have a peaceful, productive society, if we just started teaching it properly at a young age. I do believe that the popular media has a large part to play in that.
When I was a child, I was allergic to a whole bunch of things, one of them being sweets. But I wasn't allergic to apples, carrots and blackberries, so those were given to me in place of sweets. Now in adulthood blackberries are my favourite snack, followed by apples, and I'm not a huge fan of sweets.
Were you really allergic to sweets or did your parents tell you that to control your behavior? in the context of this thread, that sounds like what some parents would do, and your last sentence implies that you can actually eat them.
Depended on the sweets. There was a whole bunch of allergies I don't even remember now. My whole gastrointestinal tract was perpetually sick (since birth), I would visit the hospital basically everyday. Most notably, I couldn't eat chocolate, because I was lactose- and gluten-intolerant. So I couldn't eat any sweets which had any chocolate in them, no sweets which were pastry-based etc.
Tangentially, in those times avoiding gluten wasn't as fashionable as it is today, and so there wasn't really any gluten-free bread to buy. My mum would bake bread herself for that purpose, because otherwise I wouldn't even be able to eat bread.
Yes. I was talking about milk chocolate. I didn't even know there was something like "dark chocolate" at that age. Incidentally, now I prefer dark chocolate over milk chocolate by and large.
I mentioned gluten not in relation to chocolate, but to other sweets that do contain gluten, but also have chocolate.
I used to hate green beans. Then one day my parents said "you'll like these, they're barbecued beans." After I allowed that they were actually pretty good, they revealed they were just regular green beans but they'd accidentally burned them. Next time we had green beans I had to admit they tasted a lot like the barbecue version.
It’s more than just how one feels about chores and involves the world view and paradigm.
Indigenous families typically have a world view in which a member of the community voluntarily contributes towards something to the greater community. Some tasks are so important that someone somewhere has to do it, and it is less about individual responsibility. And this extends not just to “chores”, but the care of people and care of the land.
So this isn’t a “chore”, something someone is forced to do, perhaps even a punishment. If a modern family tries to implement this without dropping the individualist frame, there is a tension in trying to get the child to do something that you yourself don’t really want to do, yet must do as an “adult”.
It’s why for my kids, household chores are never done in order to get money. It’s a bit too late to instill this for my teenage step-daughter, but it is something we’re implementing for our 15-month old son.
Carol Sanford has written a book called Regenerative Life that describes the kind of world view and paradigm for this, and it is informed from her being raised by her Mohawk grandfather. When she adapted this to her children, she asked her two children what they wanted to contribute. Her 9 year old daughter wanted to pay the bills, and her even younger son wanted to cook dinner. She didn’t throw them into the deep end, and instead acted as a resource and helped developed their individual capacity to contribute in that way. When they were older, the daughter joined an athletic program and wanted to go on a special diet. She collaborated with her brother about her needs. He gathered the ingredients and cooked it for her, and she worked out the budget for it.
This kind of stuff can go beyond just doing chores.
The point about communitarianism in many societies is overall reasonable but generalizing about "indigenous people" is not sound. "Indigenous" is a wastebasket taxon, defining people by what they are not rather than what they are.
"Indigenous families typically have a world view in which a member of the community voluntarily contributes towards something to the greater community. "
I don't see how this is different than anywhere else. That's actually 'individual responsibility' rephrased: it's someone's 'individual responsibility to do their part'. The word 'duty' has historically always been party of our lexicon, although fallen off quite rapidly in the last couple generations.
The issue is not one of 'responsibility' because if people undertook that the world would be fine, it's all these thing v. 'personal expression or fulfillment' which is now the thing we teach people. Which is fine of course, but it doesn't gel very well with the day to day and the fact that the bulk of it is just 'grind' and often not obviously self oriented.
I could 'write a book' that was 'informed from my WW2 era grandparents' who were born on farms without electricity, about what 'community' means. That would be the experience most Westerners would have.
When it comes to dishes, there is one thing I have found that seems to work universally for children and adults alike: give them ownership. They have their own set of dishes, and it is made clear that it is their responsibility to clean them and keep them, and to not have them be in the way of others trying to do the same. If your dish is not clean, you must clean it before it can be used.
Things get hairier when it comes to pots and pans and other such common use items, but I have found that the second part of the above helps here too: make sure you're not blocking others from keeping their stuff clean. This leads to washing as you go, to caring for your stuff, and to a sense of pride in your work.
I had this idea as a kid, but my family weren't convinced:
As a child, I was perplexed as to why my mother and brother would allow dirty dishes to pile up in the sink, rather than placing them in the dishwasher. My brother, in particular, seemed to have no regard for keeping the kitchen clean. After unsuccessfully attempting to convince them that the dishwasher was a superior system, I resorted to washing only the dishes I used myself, and refusing to wash most of the others. 20 years later, my mother claims I never washed dishes, and that my brother did all the work.
It is true that my brother did the washing up for our mum, but I would argue that a lot of the work was due to avoidable inefficiency (he was a firefighter arsonist; half the kitchen would be covered in oil when he used a pan, and mum would just see the mess, not who made it, and then he'd be get the credit for cleaning it), and that I contributed roughly the amount that I consumed, because back then I would offset the occasional shared meal by occasionally doing the washing up for everyone.
This is something I'm struggling with personally. My firstborn is just about the age where he is starting to exhibit territoriality around things he is currently using.
To what extent do I want to reinforce the idea of private property in the home? Philosophically, I'm definitely against it. Practically, it seems like it has certain benefits and drawbacks and I don't know which are stronger. I have no idea! Opinions, please.
Not sure this is a perfect solution but in our house we let the kids pick one or two items that are “always yours”, everything else is considered communal and must be shared. It’s a framework to build on as they get older - some things are shared (toys) somethings are not (underwear, water bottles, Mom’s laptop).
For what it’s worth we still have daily “not sharing” arguments…
Things he is using, you definitely want to encourage the territoriality. Otherwise there is a real risk of bullying when he goes to kindergarten and preschool. But things that he is not currently using should definitely be shared.
I'm guessing that your son is about two years old (based on my three children's behaviour at that age), so he should already be in daily contact with non-family children but not yet experienced bullying. So for that I'll mention how i think about it: bullying is how humans determine who is the Alpha Male. It is natural and expected. So don't try to shield your son from it, rather, prepare him for it.
Alpha/Beta/Sigma/Omega/Upsilon male is discredited pseudo-scientific bullshit, and it is a bad idea to base one's personal philosophy on it. I also disagree that bullying is natural, but if even if it is, that still does not mean it should be accepted, tolerated, or encouraged (which you are implying).
I disagree. While the alpha male terminology seems a bit oversimplified, the fact remains that all sorts of violence, be it physical, verbal, or social (e.g. preventing someone from joining in the play) is a tool people use in varying degrees to influence relationships.
It's a dangerous tool, because it's so stupid. Beating someone is effectively saying "I don't care how well reasoned your arguments are, now you pretend to listen to me instead." But this stupidity is both its weakness and its strength.
Violence is a very complicated tool, and I think people need some exposure to it (on both sides of it) to understand when its appropriate and (more frequently) when it's uncalled for.
This does not mean it's tolerated or encouraged -- quite the opposite! It's important to be the role model that teaches children all the circumstances in which it's wrong!
But pretending it serves no social function makes, I think, you a worse teacher. By completely denying the upsides of violence you become less trustworthy as a teacher, because even children can see the obvious short-term upsides!
It IS natural (unfortunately; not all truths are palatable). And not only that, it's systematic (at least in the States). For example, I am currently "fighting" to get something covered by my health insurance. In the past I have "fought" in court to defend myself from traffic tickets, etc. It's inescapable that you will have to fight for yourself in this life in some form, IMHO. Maybe not physically, necessarily (...home intrusion? attempted robbery? unjust police use of force? Trump getting himself installed as dictator?) but force, willpower, "oomph", it's all connected. Your tone of voice on a phone call or in person? That's an expression of force as well. Fuller comment I wrote on this topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30896777
The other night I was speaking to someone I just met and realized I was (without even thinking about it) dominating the conversation, so I consciously pulled back out of respect... Perhaps that is the key to managing force, simply respecting others
While knowing how to speak forcefully is certainly a valuable skill to have, almost every situation I face in life is better approached with friendly confidence.
I've met a few people who, when a cashier or waiter makes a mistake, think they need to take control, and demand a resolution, and I think they are just being needlessly unpleasant, and get worse outcomes on average because they're being disrespectful.
Agree with that. I think I'm thinking of confident (not disrespectful) force. Just being assertive about what you think you deserve, that sort of thing. And some people are too excessive at it, possibly because others are insufficiently capable of it.
I look at Putin (also clearly a bully) and I think, was there a "posture" that Ukraine could have taken prior to this which would have discouraged him before he committed to what he is doing now? "Promising not to join NATO"? I guess the analogy would be a bully beating up a neighbor's kid to prevent him from joining a rival gang? I don't know. You acquiesce to the bully and usually the bully's demands just go up. Could Putin's advisors have gotten past their fear and been more honest with him? Well, that's the problem with ruling with fear (or perhaps I should say "using fear excessively" with the insinuation that plainly confident (but yet respectful) people do strike a bit of fear in others), you never get the whole truth.
The case of Putin is so far outside anything I've experienced that I don't feel like it would have much meaning for me to agree or disagree with you.
As for confidence striking a bit of fear in others, I've seen that most often with people who find themselves in a position where they are supposed to be a leader, but don't know how to lead. If someone is attempting to use bullying to control their reports, having confident reports can shine a light on the problem and be scary for the incompetent leader.
edit to add: I think confidence is only scary to someone who is attempting to abuse/control.
In their family lives, wolves have lifelong monogamous relationships. In their pack lives, wolves have kind of "situational leadership" where they know that wolf X is the best tracker and wolf Y is the best hunter so they follow wolf X to find prey and wolf Y takes lead to hunt it. Other than that, they are pre-democratic - if most of pack wants to do something, the rest follows.
I wouldn’t overfit on bullying. It’s a hazard to be taught, as is traffic, but hardly the dominant culture.
Having been a parent in multiple cultures / countries and talked a lot about parenting with family members in others, Americans seem to talk more than others about bullying yet tolerate it much more than most others.
Speaking as someone who was a teen in the 80's in the United States: The only way to stop a school bully (a person who has learned to use force for personal gain) is with a bigger "bully" (another stronger student, or an administrator who has more force). Therein lies the rub: Might makes right. There's no stable system of sheep because the most wolf-like of them will always emerge to take advantage of the others. You see this in behavior across species, there's like an "aggression equilibrium"; too many wolves result in too much bloodshed; too few and a single wolf obtains an outsize share of resources/social/reproductive capital, or what have you (and thus perpetuates their aggressive genes). Witness every communist system put into place so far: What was envisioned was a system of equals, but nature abhors a vacuum so what you end up getting is a bunch of people considered equals, and a dictator above them all.
And truly, I learned this lesson early on only because of bullying (towards me): The school administration did nothing. The teachers did nothing. I was left to fend for myself... and this is what I learned: If you screw up the courage to stand up to a bully ("display your readiness to use force"), they will often back down. In some cases they will ONLY back down if you resort to physicality (the proverbial "fist to the face"). I learned this lesson again and again- I've had my wrist broken by a bully, but at least he never messed with me again. And as an adult, I've applied this, not in the direct use of force but in the fact that your will is what counts- when fighting traffic tickets, it's you vs. the system.
It shouldn't be surprising that 100% of the bullies I knew (who because I'm a peaceable sort, I actually friended on FB years later) became Republicans. But some of them also became leaders in various things.
My main bully, however, was apparently a troubled sort himself, and ended up taking a shotgun to his own head in front of his family. Spent a week in the ICU before giving up the ghost. Before this happened, I randomly ran into him at a bar. I didn't recognize him at first because he had gained a lot of weight, but one look in the eyes (the eyes always contain the identity of the individual when nothing else does, for some reason) and he immediately said "Let me buy you a beer". I accepted.
On the other hand, speaking as someone who was a teen in the 00s in the UK, I never found that sort of "might makes right" solution worked - when I was violent, I was mocked for my temper, and when I was peaceful I was mocked for my lack of temper.
What ultimately helped was (a) growing a person, and recognising that the people I was choosing to hang out with were often either bullies, or enabling the bullies; and (b) relocating to a new school where I could redefine myself in a way that I was more comfortable with.
School relocation can go in either direction. One of the worst things my parents (unknowingly at the time) did was move our family when I was turning 12. We had just left a parochial school where I was doing fine both academically and socially, and then... a (good) public school with people I never met. All the other dudes had already established "tacit dominance hierarchies" or whatever, and here I come in and mess the whole thing up (another thing that didn't help was the merging of 2 schools into 1 in 7th grade, apparently causing EVERY guy (ok many guys, but not me) to enter "test the other person's mettle mode"). Junior high was HELL as a result. I was a super-late bloomer (or that is what they used to call it; what actually happened in reality is that I had testosterone secretion timing issues and my parents were too frugal to take me to a doctor) and that didn't help either.
I remember 1 fight in grade school, a guy shorter than me picked a fight with me, next thing I know there's a circle of people around us jeering, and me being the nonviolent type managed to snatch him into a headlock and give him a "noogie" (rubbing knuckles on the person's scalp which hurts like a bitch but does no harm) and he said "mercy" pretty quick and I helped him off the floor- I was pretty proud of that resolution... but it WAS ultimately the application of a form of (counter)force.
Correct at all counts. He's two, and I certainly notice that he (and his peers) are starting to experiment with violence as a tool for managing relationships with people and things.
My instinct was also the "take turns using things, but don't assert property rights of things that aren't used".
Where I'm hesitant is some things have incredible emotional value to one person but not to others -- is it not nice to ask others to respect that?
Something else that troubles me is that I certainly don't act that way -- there are many things my wife and I brought into our relationship that we still consider private property, mainly for convenience ("her" drawer is organised according to her needs, for example).
Another thing is purely linguistic habit. While my wife is very good at asking e.g. "can I taste the ice cream" I'm used to phrasing the question as "can I taste your ice cream".
I think “your ice cream” is perfectly appropriate.
The flip side to seeing wealth as communal is that you need to respect the division when it happens. As custodian of the family’s money, you bought everybody ice cream. But some of that ice cream is now yours. It’s your fair share of the ice cream, you picked the flavours and the sprinkles and what not, because it was for you. It’s entirely appropriate, and indeed desirable, to assert ownership over that. Not respecting boundaries is a Bad Thing.
What you can, and should, teach on top of that is generosity. “This is my ice cream and mine alone, but you can taste it if you like.” That sort of idea.
It’s your decision to share, but sharing your ice cream with me means you get to see my smile as I try that really good flavour you asked for, and that smile is really valuable.
I've read it here on HN few months ago and somehow it stuck with me. I try to look at world, people, relationships etc through this lens, in both positive and negative manifestations of it.
I'll try to teach my kids the reason behind it. Generosity for me is one type of kindness.
Your remaining questions I don't have answers for )) Maybe ask me something about Python?
Your example of linguistic habit is excellent, because it demonstrates that the language we use is both descriptive of how we perceive our surroundings, and prescriptive in influencing behaviour. Maybe ask "can I taste the ice cream" but offer "you can taste my ice cream". Children are wiser than us, instead of perceiving a mixed signal I find they usually figure out how to interpret things in surprising ways - that goes for my own children and other peoples' children. They are far more plastic and have less preconceived "bins" to interpret things.
The truth is, most of our questions regarding raising the kids we will not ever get answers for. That's fine, the kids are learning along the way just as we are.
I got a kid who "does the chores". The reason they do it is that they've been educated since very young age (3+) to have responsibilities: cleaning, tidying up, setting/clearing the table and so on. They have their own hoover and drying rack.
I believe it's ultimately a matter of underlying philosophy of treating children like "young adults" or not, with all the consequences, as the roles are set from very young age.
I know parents who are horrified when they hear about 5 years old children cleaning up after themselves; with their model though, they set the role of "incapable children" and "providing parents" - "teaching" them to do the "chores" later will be hard, because it's not in the role they've taught.
I also disagree with the term "chore". It's true that they're boring, but this term disconnects tasks from their purposes; if nobody, say, sets and clears the table, nobody can eat. It's crucial to have in mind that chores/tasks always have a purpose. If a child is grown up as "incapable", there's no connection between task and purpose, and actually, it's rational to refuse to perform any task ("chore"), because it's part of somebody else's responsibilities (the "providing parent").
On a documentary, a couple of blind people had a daughter. She kinda helped in every tasks, and with a natural care. It was a deep collaboration all the time. To me it's as if being blind made her parents unable to play games (being selfish, bossy, lying) with the girl, and included her in everything as a team member, and she naturally rose to the challenge by giving her full attention. Maybe I'm wrong but it left a strong memory in me.
I said documentary but it was tiny french lunch news video (15min) about blind couples from 15 years ago, I tried to google generic terms but got nothing.
to add to the video, it was overwhelming to see the trio operate in such sweet harmony (as opposed to the fun or sometimes not so fun chaos of the usual family)
Not the answer you might want to hear… but books are usually not a good approach for this kind of topic as
- you will need to look at every single advice with distance and criticism to see if it fits your kid
- there will be hundreds of little things you will have to find by yourself to make it work that won’t be in the book you read.
At the end of the day, I’m not sure parenting books help more than random discussions from other parents who’ll give hint about stuff they are trying. I remember reading a lot about “free range” parenting for instance, and it was basically wasted time. The general idea in itself is extremely valuable, the details don’t matter at all, as every parent will have to rethink it all by themselves to make it work in their specific setting.
This sounds like Montessori. It involves observing the child, making sure they have appropriate tools for their size and ability, taking the time to slowly tech them everything you think is obvious, etc.
I think often the hard part is establishing just what treating kids like 'young adults' means. They're fairly different (for better and for worse) so it can be hard to apply certain things that might work on a real young adult (I think certain kinds of negotiations are where this is most clear).
> I think often the hard part is establishing just what treating kids like 'young adults' means.
This is very true. A couple of actionable principles that pop out of my mind:
1. if a child can physically do a task, they should do it, at most, with some help. In addition to home "chores", even small, principled actions, like paying their purchases by themselves, and even phone calls (again, with help).
2. lead by example and not verbally; classic example: don't consume junk food, rather than consuming it and (separately) teaching that it's bad. This is very hard, but it gives parents an entirely different credibility.
This approach works when it's started early though (especially point 1). I have no idea if I could make this work (I think not) if I had to deal with a 10-years old child who had a different upbringing.
It's not quite what you are asking for, but I think you'd be interested in NurtureShock. It investigates common parenting sense with a foot in the evidence and finds a lot of things that don't quite add up. (One typical finding that relates to the "small adult" thing is that it's beneficial to discuss race and racial issues surprisingly early.)
Although it's ostensibly aimed at adults, Dan Pink's Drive is a useful reference for what motivates people, including children.
When we're at it, I also learned a lot about what can and cannot be taught to children from The Nurture Assumption.
This isn’t exactly about treating kids like “young adults” but Magda Gerber’s Your Self Confident Baby is largely about recognizing how capable kids are, even from infancy.
Also check out Ross Greene, whose big idea is basically “you can do collaborative decision making with children that more closely resembles how you would negotiate and interact with an adult whose autonomy you respect, vs just trying to impose your will on them.”
The author of the article has a full blown book on the subject: Hunt, Gather, Parent. It’s a mix of anecdotes and some of the psychology of why this approach appears to work. My wife and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Intuitively I expect that the earlier the pattern is set, the easier it will be later. I don't think chores need to be spun as anything other than what they are; I'm a fully grown adult and don't care for a good deal of them, but I have the ingrained habit not to defer them indefinitely. Once you get going it's not so bad, I do a lot of daydreaming during routines.
On the other hand, I don't think I would have a hefty list of expectations. You're only a child once. My labor expectations are low, I just want them to have constructive / creative go-to activities when playing. Overscheduling or putting them to work all the time just robs them of childhood experience that they'll never get again. Putting away toys and cleaning up after a mess is a reasonable ask, as they need to learn to take care of themselves and not live like slobs into adulthood.
> [...] rinses the dishes for the dishwasher [...]
Is that a thing in the US? My current dishwasher is from 2015, stock standard Ikea.
I never had to rinse anything for it to come out sparkling clean. Even in the fast program that only runs 64mins.
The other day I had an Airbnb guest from NYC and I saw him rinsing. And when asked why he told me that was necessary because the dishwasher couldn't cope with it otherwise and stuff would come out dirty.
He looked perplexed when I told him no dishwasher I used for over twenty years required rinsing beforehand.
Is this 'rinsing requirement' an urban myth sticking around in some areas of the world?
Edit: I live in Berlin but have been living in Australia, the UK, Japan and Italy over the last two decades. No dishwashers in the apartments I lived in in those countries required rinsing either.
Do you run the dishwasher as soon as you put items in it, or do put items in throughout the day but not run it until it's full?
I wonder if some of the disagreement over this is because food becomes more stuck on the longer one leaves it, and so rinsing is needed if you are not going to start the dishwasher for another 12-18 hours?
From my experience, rinsing doesn't seem to have much of an effect, no matter how long the food stays in the dishwasher. I use long cycles though, maybe short cycles benefit from it. Scraping other the trashcan is useful to avoid clogging the filters if your dishwasher doesn't have a shredder.
Sometimes, dishes don't clean properly, usually, it is because the dishwasher is not loaded properly, or overloaded, but when it isn't, simple rinsing typically wouldn't have helped, and washing the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher makes you wonder why use a dishwasher in the first place.
I am aware that commercial dishwashers are a completely different things. These things usually run much more aggressive, faster cycles and they are more about sanitizing than washing, so vigorous rinsing may be necessary.
Dishwasher pods are heavily marketed in the US and actually wash more poorly compared to plain powder. With pods the pre-wash ends up running without detergent, so rinsing off dishes becomes necessary.
Consumer Reports disagrees. Not all dishwasher pods rank better, but pods consistently make up the vast majority of their top picks, or they have at all of the times I’ve been subscribed.
(I usually buy a month of access every couple of years or so. Mostly to see the updated dishwasher detergent reviews tbqh.)
For the most part (ignoring old/damaged washers) it's just a holdover from the older generation. My parents and their parents did it, and I expect many of my cohort follow through by example. However, I do not rinse and the results come out the same.
The only caveat being that you will still get dirty spots if you over fill or place poorly certain shaped things. This happens regardless of rinsing, and I believe contributes to the myth
My garbage whirlpool dishwasher looks to be from the 90s and a cheap version from back then. I can put a clean plate in it and it might come out dirty. Also part of the rental and my landlord is impossible to deal with so here we are.
It doesn’t have a removable filter, just some sort of grille in the back that I have to clean between loads and the shitty texture makes it grip crap like Velcro, not fun.
Dishwasher soap in the US is garbage now, so you have to scrub anything that might possibly stick on, despite the wash cycle on my dishwasher taking nearly two and a half hours.
The tabs I use are environmental friendly. I.e. no phosphates, no palm oil, no chlorine. The wrapper dissolves in the machine (an algae-based polymer similar to what is used for capsules to deliver meds).
I live in the US, never pre rinse, used cascade platinum or some homemade mix of washing soda and essential oils I received as a gift, both work great, dishes are very clean in the machine.
If I rinse the dishes, I can use the 20min express program and dishes are sparkling and dry. I use that program because plastic stuff dries better than with the standard program, and we often have more dishes than fit in the dishwasher and I don't want to wait an hour.
Also, some foods (egg yolk, dried porridge) don't come off in the dishwasher.
No rinsing, even when I let the stuff dry up. Doesn't matter if you select a fast or slow program either, with one exception: The EU mandated "eco" program that is by law the default. Avoid that at all costs because you'd have to run it twice.
At a job back in school for a German Historical Institute in the US, I started rinsing dishes and my manager said "You don't need to pre-wash, it's a German Dishwasher"
Wait, 12 yo in the US don't know how to do chores or do not understand how a house is set up?
Ok, I'll give you the Maya method, or the French method, or the Japanese method, or the Hacker method, or wherever we figured out parenting from in our household:
make kids feel they are part of the adults group. Share tasks, concerns, information, understanding. My 7 yo is (clumsily) washing his dishes because the rule is that if you don't cook, you wash dishes. That before going back to play, we clean the table. It is the rule for everyone, adults or kids.
We don't fake enjoyment of the chores, we explain its usefulness, we (well, I) do complain a lot about them, and my kid sometimes does it too, but still does it without being told.
Kids learn by imitation and they want to belong to your group. Give them what they want there. Set the example, be fair, be honest.
This is part of a larger divide between "childhood" and "real life" that we set up to a great extent in the US. Childhood innocence is fetishized in the US in a particular way, edging very much into what we allow to be taught in schools or consider inappropriate in schools. There is a deep emphasis on trying to not have kids feel bad and adults project all kinds of their own s*(& on that.
It contrasts with a different point of view, that kids are just people, and people need to 1) take part in chores and work to make life function, and 2) sometimes feel bad because life is hard (either feel bad because they messed up, or because something happened to someone else). Chores can be fun, chores can be a drag, attitude matters -- but in the end food needs to be cooked and dishes need to be cleaned, no way around that. I think our culture in the US tries to avoid these realities and wants children to live a dream. From my point of view, though, it is a gesture of respect to include my child in the important work of running a house. Moreover, this child will be better-prepared for life if they can prepare food, manage a budget, fix clothing and mechanical problems, build some basic items, etc. I met too many folks in college who couldn't cook rice or wash their own laundry. That is not a setup for success. You can have a lot more fun if you can make a fancy ramen dinner and have your friends over to your crappy apartment that is decently furnished because you can manage curtains and bookshelves than if you need to pay $$ for all of the above. I have as much book learning as a person in the US can expect to have, but I really respect the lessons I learned from my elders about cooking, cleaning, preparing items from nature/fabric/wood, fixing stuff. Those lessons came from childhood involvement in chores. They carried over quite well to an engineering school education and then into the corporate world (see "tech debt").
My kid spent the weekend playing, learning how to change tires on the car, mixing pizza dough and getting toppings together, cleaning the living room, watching Disney music videos (no no no), and planting seeds for our seed starting. Just do stuff as part of life and include the kid to the extent they can participate.
Ah yes, the "kids would love chores if only parents did it right!" argument. I assume all readers in this thread love doing all of their chores all of the time. "Yay, I can't wait to clean the litterbox again!" "Oh good, I get to clean all of the dishes again!" "Sweet, it's 95F out and I get to mow the lawn!"
Seriously? I can get some simple joy from doing some chores, but most of them I'd happily give up. Kids aren't dumb, they figure things out real quick. They are also wired like their parents, and so if the parents like to do dishes and vacuum, the kids are likely to enjoy the same. I hate, and have always hated, mowing the lawn. I've done it for the vast majority of my life. Try to engage my son all you want, and he'll still hate it. Some people love mowing the lawn, I wish I was one of them!
Parenting is tough - read articles like these, try the techniques out, but don't feel bad if it doesn't work out. 99% of this content has been useless to me, but I do find 1% that helps. Just don't beat yourself up over it if it doesn't work.
If you hate mowing the lawn, its guaranteed to be obvious for any keen observer. Children are super-observers (especially compared to what many expect from them due to their age and appearance).
It may very well be that kid took their attitude from you, good or bad doesn't matter. From evolutionary point of view it also makes more sense than any other possibility.
I think the point is that there is no method. Maya culture _is_ the method.
The article does miss out on something important. Do Maya boys and the girls do the same "chores"? Are they equally as amenable to doing the "household-type" things?
Getting 2 years old try to do chores is as easy as not preventing it - they still learn to control their motions and eager to apply it everywhere. The trick is to get that continue past 4 years where the novelty wears off.
Exactly. Plus this article made me quite nostalgic for the days of having only one child… it’s fun doing chores with toddlers provided you don’t really need them done and nobody else wants your attention!
Don't take it the wrong way, but that's exactly the point of the article. You make the activity part of the quality time, unless you suddenly don't have time for your older kids anymore.
I was reading the article and wondering why that is even called the Maya method. Is that so special? I just had breakfast, my younger one put a new bag into the rubbish and the older one (7) made me crepes the other day (without any help) and was incredibly proud, because the crepes stays whole unlike in previous attempts were it broke when turning. I think this is really about giving kids responsibility and taking them seriously as proper persons. They want to help, they want responsibilities, it is us adults who don't want to give it to them.
For our kids once they were used to it it just became normal. There is no argument, it is just what you do. Also they can do new things, mine are really enjoying cooking now, still with help but in 1-2 years they will enjoy doing the cooking all by themselves.
I believe functioning adults naturally do chores provided they get to choose what, when and most importantly how.
Most of the conflicts I had with my SO regarding chores were about the way things should be done not if.
Also it helps to assign responsibility - I have a friend who went as far as starting a family JIRA instance(it's frer for teams of up to 10). It's likely that it saved his marriage.
How often can lead to big disagreements though. For example, Some people feel like hoovering is something that needs to be done everyday. For others, once a month might be sufficient.
My spouse is into having things very, very clean (from my perspective, at least). When we moved in together (over a decade ago) we negotiated household duties - basically wrote them all out and ranked them by how much we hated doing them, then optimized the division of labor to achieve least total pain…
Here’s the thing - in that process we found fundamental disagreements on what’s important to clean up in the first place. Life’s too short to make beds… Rooms have doors for a reason… listing out what we each expected really helped launch a conversation about compromise about doing things at all, as much as it did who would do things. I’m a lot cleaner now because I know exactly what she wants, and she’s a lot more flexible and accepting of my messes because she knows it’s not my default and I’m trying for her.
Read Skinner. Conditioning can do wonders. You can train people like you train dogs, though there is a catch: people must not notice that they are being trained.
From ethics standpoint it is an arguable approach, so you need to think before choosing this path. I believe that something can be done about people not noticing the training, if you manage to frame this training in a manner that doesn't reject their illusion of a free will. But I'm not sure, because never tried. Though when you openly thank people for their help, it is a kind of reinforcement, and therefore conditioning. But it works worse then when reinforcement sneaks in without consciousness noticing it.
I find this very manipulative. You change the world to fit a person, who ends up consuming his circumstances. The whole point of growing as a personality is wanting to grow and learn. People should know what their issues and blockades are, and put effort into it, so that they may teach others their findings and methods.
Yes, it is very manipulative. It is the ethics issue I mentioned above. It can change your attitude to your partner in bad ways. It will lead to a disaster if your partner find out about the manipulation.
> The whole point of growing as a personality is wanting to grow and learn.
No it is not the whole point. I don't want to make all the chores myself also. I don't want to fight over chores, to make my partner to do some of them.
Though I agree, it would be nice to find such a way, that doesn't have the ethics issues, and moreover not just train a partner to do chores, but makes him a better personality.
I always thought the allowance system worked ok, but this might be better? Starting at around 5yo my parents would reward my chores with weekly allowance money (usually a few bucks a week). If I neglected my responsibilities, my allowance was reduced that week. They would explain the reasoning for the lower reward and I would often make it up by doing a different chore. They laid it out with an explanation along the lines of: "if you do x, you get the pay, if I do x, I keep the pay". Even to a 5yo that just seemed fair and it would encourage me to pick up extra chores in hopes of getting a few extra bucks. I learned fast that doing nothing meant I had little control over the purchase of Batman Action figures and video game cartridges.
Extrinsic motivation (which is what this is) is tricky for several reasons.
First of all, it kills intrinsic motivation. Once you start to reward someone materially for behaviour, you have to continue in perpetuity because they no longer see any reason to do the thing "for its own reward", as we say.
Second, you replace an imperative (one washes one's dishes) with a business transaction (is the proposed payout really superior to the opportunity loss of my time?)
Third, you introduce odd incentives to optimise and find loopholes that allow you to get away with as little as possible for as much as possible.
It simply becomes a very different game. It seems like that worked out for you, which is great, but I'd be very careful about doing it with my children.
Alfie Kohn’s book Punished by Rewards goes in depth with this and provides tons of research.
It is mind blowing how ingrained extrinsic motivation methods are in our families, culture, and institutions - despite being clearly counterproductive and downright harmful.
I think our obsession with extrinsic motivation is a fairly recent phenomenon, that came with the industrial revolution and the capitalist bureaucracies it spawned to control workers. So it's not that surprising.
But I'm glad more and more people are starting to see it for the historic anomaly it is!
This works well to get the chore done, as a captive supply of low wage labor. If the goal is rather to instill a set of responsible habits that will serve the child in adulthood, the allowance system might fail when a “Deus ex machina” is no longer present to reward or punish.
I've found that there's a natural shift at some point where you know the reward has shifted from a financial one to something different. In the dish washing example, it's the reward of clean dishes vs the punishment of having no clean dishes combined with a smelly sink full of dishes. That said, I've definitely lived with roommates that didn't go through that transition.
This completely failed with me. I wasn’t interested in the money and was very happy that I no longer needed to do chores. My parents abandoned the approach after about 6 weeks.
That's an interesting one. I've asked myself this question before, but it's a hard one to answer since we can't reset our age for scientific comparison. It worked pretty well for me, but I could see it going sideways for other personality types.
my kids (~6, ~8) don't have access to videogames and watch TV maybe 30m a day, and not every day, but still don't do chores happily.
I don't think screens are categorically different from other distractions (tho they may be worse in some ways). My daughter will happily spend time reading books after having made a mess with toys rather than tidy up. My son does the same and he can't even read.
Yeah well you have to remember that the mayan villages they studied didn't even have a library. When I first read about this mayan method they had packed soil for floors and huts.
So when I say distractions, I mean all distractions.
The moment that kid enters K12, you've lost. The moment all the classmates start throwing around memes, references, and pop culture, and your kids sit at the back quietly and secluded - you've lost. The child has to go through these periods the hard way and learn to cope with impulses and stimuli.
If this resonates with you, check out Montessori. I think learning (or, rather, retaining) appreciation for "work" is an important part of why Montessori is so successful.
This can also be learned later in life. As a teen I didn’t help much or complained and expected compensation for chores. When I joined the army you were expected to always pitch in, and there were no janitors, so you’re always cleaning and maintaining things yourself. Fast forward 25 years and I’ll be the first to volunteer to do dishes, will see a floor or vacuum without asking, and always willing to pitch in on a hard, physical task without hesitation.
Imagine you without that army training. Most humans don't go through one. Or a training that prefers slackers, pretenders, intense drinking/smoking, bullying (ie Russian style is exactly this and it shows when SHTF).
Its simply better for given person and society overall to learn these things as a kid, learning gets harder as we age and this is no different.
The method I try to use with the kid is to involve her in what I’m doing, and enable and encourage playing at being an adult. That translates a lot into doing some of the housework. Other than that I try to avoid rewards for work, but I do a “no doing the thing you want until you do the thing you need to do” rule. So some amount of work needs to get done before TV time, but it is a fine line to walk to make sure the reward doesn’t ruin intrinsic motivation.
Wonder what the effect is of having close-aged siblings? There was little chance I would voluntarily do the dishes or fold laundry by myself while my siblings were doing something else. (But was this because my siblings were doing something else, or because I had learned to hate chores already?)
This is kind of a sample of the author’s book on her experience learning and applying non-western parenting approaches from traditional cultures, which is well worth reading (or listening to on Audible). The book is titled: Hunt, Gather, Parent but she actually only visits one hunter gatherer group.
The goal is not to "get kids to do chores" per se, but to raise adults who are self sufficient and self reliant. "Chores" is a bit of a loaded word because I think a lot of people associate it with dread and a sort of low key undeserved punishment, which is certainly not the goal. In this context it is more akin to having a child pass you pegs while you are trying to hang the washing on the line as opposed to parking them in front of a screen or compete for your attention.
What if I’m super wealthy, and i don’t do any chores but have servants who do them all? Is the important part then to teach them how to treat the servants perhaps?
That makes me feel good about having the 3-year-old help with pancakes this morning. It became our weekend daddy-daughter activity last month. She's always demanding to make pancakes and demanding to be involved in the process.
Parenting is “dedicating your whole life” for some period of time. If you manage to get some of the fundamentals right and are lucky then more of that period can be fun.
Most of the article was the author writing about her own personal experience, and she appears to have but one child, a daughter. The other examples seemed coincidentally (to me) also to be about daughters. So I suppose no.
But if it makes you feel better, I have a son whom we raised this way and he is the same. This was also how it worked at school, at least in Vorschule and Grundschule. That could be a German cultural thing — the US seems to have that kind of thing backwards.
I've had a pretty basic and successful approach to getting both of my kids to do chores:
(1) I'm honest, nobody likes doing chores, including me. We're part of a family. There are things that have to get done. Dad does chores in the form of work that the kids can't help with. The kids pull up some of the slack so Dad has time to do fun things with them.
(2) Your age does not dictate your privileges, your maturity does. A big part of maturity is doing things you have to do with the quality you would if you actually wanted to do them. Demonstrating that you are completing your chores without being asked and at or above the level I am expecting them to be completed always earns you more privileges. I won't give you crap about playing video games too long, you won't get interrupted while playing to finish something that didn't get done, you'll get more of an opportunity to control your free time without my interference.
(3) I spell it all out to them, regularly. It's one thing to say "this is what will happen", but it's another thing for me to walk into a room and recognize "Hey bud, thanks for taking care of the kitchen so well and without being asked, you're really demonstrating maturity of a kid a lot older than you. You can have an extra hour of (privilege) or 'you no longer have to ask me permission to have (privilege) because you've demonstrated your maturity'". I thank them, constantly, when they decide to handle something early, when they handle things correctly, or when their handling of things is more thorough than usual.
(4) When things aren't right, but effort was made, I praise the work that was done and the parts I was happy with, first. If it's pretty close to correct, but part of it was missed, I'll let them finish whatever entertainment they're in the middle of instead of making them stop and fix it with a simple "You got pretty close, so I'm going to give you a break. When you're done with that, just wipe off the table. Make sure it gets done in the next 30 minutes".
(5) When the chore is unusually large (big dinner/etc)[0], I get right in there with them and intentionally take the hardest part of the job -- cleaning the pots/pans/knives by hand. They hate it, they know I hate it, and when they see me step in, everyone suddenly works harder and without complaining[1].
(6) If it's a total failure or they completely forgot, they are required to stop what they're doing and address it immediately.
That last one doesn't come up much any longer. When it does, it rarely comes with grief because they know that grousing is simply going to result in me repeating the exact expectations they already know they live under. When I do get grief, I re-explain the rules and end up at "So we have a bunch of things that need to get done and a family who needs them to get done. I can't think of a more reasonable way to make sure both of those needs are met. If you have better ideas, I'll listen." ... and the chore gets done.
Since taking this approach, I've never had to resort to discipline. I don't even make it about that. To them, I'm not having them do chores in order to "teach them about work", I'm having them do chores because "there's work to be done and it's right that we share it."
I will say, it took me a while to get there. It was tempting once my kids started showing that they could handle chores to give them far more than they should be expected to handle. It was also tempting to hold them to an unreasonable standard. I've learned that until they're around 14-years old, the chore will get done to my expectations 1 out of 5 times. They'll actually remember to do the chore without being asked about 3 out of 5 times. There is no yelling, no grounding, etc when they're not meeting my expectations. Chores suck. That just makes them dread them, more, and it'll "only make them work as hard as they need to in order to not get [grief]"
I set my expectations accordingly. It'd be nice if my 12-year-old didn't skip cleaning the shower almost every time the bathroom chore comes up, but she's young and forgets -- we have a list, she forgets to look at it. Both of my oldest kids, once they hit 14, just "get it done" and do things they're not expected to nor asked (which I encourage by making a big deal about it in front of the rest of the family). That's a big deal for me. I learned early in my career that the person who volunteers for the work nobody wants to do often gets to chosen to do the work everyone wants to do.
It's tempting when they're doing things right to treat that as "normal" and ignore it. I try my hardest to avoid this -- I don't want my kids to feel like their efforts are taken for granted. I certainly appreciate walking into a clean kitchen to cook and I will find the kid who handled that job, last, give them a hug and tell them how thankful I am that they made my job easier by doing what they had to do. My oldest acts as though I'm over-doing it, but I don't let that bit of humility stop me.
I remember telling my 16-year old that I was terrified about the idea of handing over the keys to my car when he was 13. While teaching him how to drive, I realized I had no fear that he'd choose to be irresponsible with such a dangerous privilege. I still have fear, but driving is dangerous no matter how responsible you are. This child, however, got his first job this year (he's a lifeguard) and is loved by his manager, the same kid who couldn't keep $10 from burning a hole in his pocket and couldn't come up with an answer to "what do you think you'd want to do when you move out?" has $1,000 saved up in the bank[2] in a couple of months because he wants to be a pilot and knows he needs a lot of money available for flight school and a degree. He drives himself to the gym after school or after work three days a week. He knows he's responsible for paying for college and from 9th grade on he's scored all "A"'s with an occasional "B+" which landed him in a program to take college classes during High School at no cost. He is a much harder working kid than I was at his age and he's a hell of a lot happier than I was back then.
Seems like a stretch to connect chores and that, but it all comes back to it. Nothing is free, nothing gets done without someone doing it, and as far as your own life is concerned, you're never going to achieve the things you want to do if you aren't willing to do the things you have to do. He fully grasps this and my 14-year-old is almost there, too. The others are well on their way.
[0] A rule in my home has long been "The kids handle meal clean-up". The adults cook, the kids clean. It's entirely selfish on my part, I hate doing dishes, and it was probably the first thing I taught all of the kids to handle. They know I hate doing it.
[1] Something that I picked up on early in my first job was that managers who lead this way win the trust of their staff. I had a retail job and was "a grunt"; for a brief period we had a GM that everyone loved. The reason was simple: He worked 8-5, but every morning when the store opened, he was right out there with us tidying up the aisles, aligning products, pulling depleted products down from overstock ... the crappy parts. It barely affected the amount of work we had to do having one extra guy out there, but it made everyone want to work harder seeing the "big important guy" doing the menial labour work.
[2] My dad's rule was "you save 60% of what you make while you live here". My Dad started a business for me -- selling custom PCs to businesses -- so I was making quite a bit of money. I hated the rule. I didn't even look at my savings account until a few days after my 17th birthday when my Dad sat me down and said "you have $14,000 saved up -- it's time to buy a good used car; what kind do you think you want to own?" I was the kid driving a bright red convertible to school, without a car payment or a dime of Mom/Dad's money. That thing was cleaned every weekend/waxed once a month and never got a ding or a scratch on it. My 16-year old didn't need help saving, he wants to.
Kids are wired to want to learn things. Learning is fun, because play is semi-structured learning.
You can see this in other species too, where pups and kittens play at hunting and fighting, and it comes with a number of important corollaries.
First one is that a major part of this learning experience is emotional, not just technical. You’re not just teaching your child to wash the dishes, you’re also teaching them how to feel about washing the dishes. If you act like chores are something to be avoided, your kids will learn that from you. If you resent your kids not helping, they’ll learn that too.
Second is that kids never stop learning, so you never stop teaching. If you act like you resent chores all day, then try to act enthusiastic about doing them as a way to get your kid to help, they’ll catch on to the deception really quickly.
Third, your kids are not always learning the lessons you want to teach them. If you want to punish them for misbehaving, don’t do that by giving them chores. Chores = punishment teaches the exact opposite of what you want them to learn!