This adds to my hypothesis that the problems you keep bringing up are a result of fewer moms able to be at home.
If a child is at daycare all day, they might clean up to the sound of the cleanup song, but they don't get to help an adult out with setting up crafts, because if they mess up, the hour is ruined for all the kids at the daycare. If parents are busy when they are home, with a small window to get a healthy dinner on the table and the house cleaned up, yeah, they aren't going to be able to take a child's help.
The thing I notice among American kids is there's very little middle ground to be a Capable Child. You're either a forever baby with cartoons and toys, or you're a parentified teen forgoing everything fun to take care of your many siblings, a la Shari Franke.
In a writing workshop, an immigrant friend was reading from her memoir about working in the family business, where she took customer orders and helped fulfilling them. I found it relatable, having helped my mom out with her business back home in child-appropriate ways. The rest of the workshop, who had been mostly raised in the US, expressed concern over Child Labor.
I founded an early childhood center (child care/toddler and preschool programs) using the LifeWays model. It emphasizes teaching children about life by engaging them in domestic activities. Tasks like kneading dough before baking the buns for snack, washing their chairs with a wet sock on their hands, setting the table, or sweeping the floor were all consider fun activities for the children. The more adults modeled them and allowed children to practice them, the more successful they were. It was a confidence builder for the children who got to be bread-bakers, cleaners, gardeners and more. They were making valuable and practical contributions to their community, learning skills along the way. For a child, there is no distinction between work and play.
I think you’re absolutely right about the daycare/ working moms/ time crunch affecting things.
When I babysit my friends’ kids and our next activity is “go do whatever we want in the yard for an hour,” we can absolutely spend 10 or more minutes by the door putting shoes on to go outside. I’ll let the 3 year old try and put his socks on and only go in for an assist if asked, and first I will model how to pinch the sides of the socks long actually assisting.
This is not a time-efficient activity.
It can be such a lovely and zen moment if you get into it. And watching that lightbulb of “I did it myself” is a joy to behold.
It does NOT happen if you’re late for work or daycare or baseball. Or if you’re frazzled, sleep deprived, and have used up every ounce of patience in other ways. Or if your kid hasn’t seen you all day and wants your attention and will only repeat “mommy do it” to the point of tears.
Making room for them to help us certainly a horizon worth aiming at, but there are so many reasons it doesn’t “just happen” by itself.
As a first time mom, my instinct is to do it myself. But my kid is very insistent from before she was verbal, about doing things by herself. It would bother me when she didn't take instruction much, but she wants to try to do everything by herself, and she's good at asking for help when she's overwhelmed. I realized this is such a vital skill and instinct to develop and a lot of us don't get this quite right because we haven't struggled enough in the presence of someone who can teach us.
I bet there are really loving intentions behind your first instinct to “just do it.” At first they’re literally helpless so you have to! And doing it is modeling it, not to mention an expression of your love.
It’s awesome that your daughter is good at asking for help!
I don’t have children but I work with them. First as a behavior therapist and now as a speech therapist (which can be a lot of functional communication skills beyond just correcting speech sounds).
It’s been astonishing what teaching “ask for help” can do to curb distress and tantrums even in the most reactive and difficult kids. It can work magic in sign language with nonverbal or preverbal kids as well.
There is no greater crime than giving unsolicited parenting advice, but you might appreciate this:
After asking for help, the best and most transformative thing I’ve ever worked on, when they’re ready, is a pair of questions:
My kids did help as toddlers in the way you describe—but they stopped when they got older. An additional theory is that it’s not only “wanting to help” than explains a toddler’s desire to want to help with household tasks, it’s also curiosity and a desire to feel capable. Once they’ve proved to themselves that they can do it, they aren’t as interested in doing it (eg learning how to wash a dish.) Unfortunately, this desire to feel capable doing chores does not continue because the chores don’t get increasingly complex—it doesn’t take very long to be competent in most every routine chore that needs to be done around the house, with the exception of cooking.
I also think the culture around the rubs off (chores are boring, mindless and to be avoided) even if you try to create your own family culture.
However, my older children have expressed interest in “owning” a task. The more freedom they have in deciding when and how the job gets done the better, something that I think resonates with your writing.
Yes, the more they can decide what and how to do it the more they will want to do it. Also, as kids get older the will want to take on more challenging chores. e.g. cooking dinner, not just washing dishes.
I remember telling my boys that everyone helped in our house. Not long after that my oldest son complained that it wasn't fair that his younger brother always got to set the table--he wanted a turn too.
Tom Sawyer getting half the boys in the neighborhood to paint Aunt Polly’s fence for him by rebranding it as a rare privilege for cool & highly-skilled people ✅
My husband recently reminded me of what I had said to him 20 years ago: "Even though it takes more time to complete a task when you let our little kids help you with it, it's worth it. They gain a skill, they spend time with you, and if you don't do it now, they won't want to do it later."
When my son was a toddler, he always helped clean up his room and feed the dog and walk the dog with me. Then as an elementary aged boy, I claimed "dumb" a lot and said I didn't know how to do something and let him figure it out with me.
Now as a tween, he actually knows how to do a lot of things I actually don't know how to do including building self-assembly furniture, putting air in the car tires, mowing the lawn, using the leaf blower, and many other things.
Now, I rely on him for a lot of things and he is happy to help. I like how he is capable, a necessary trait in becoming a good citizen.
This is a core concept in Montessori infant and toddler environments. The space is designed to allow toddlers independence and the ability to care for themselves, their friends and the physical environment.
I know of parents who find Montessori schools “eerie” when they visit them. Because during certain tasks (even stuff like table setting and clean up) even very young kids are extremely focused and quiet and industrious, which is like a bear riding a tricycle if you have “normal” kids these days. I guess it would seem like they’ve drugged and brainwashed these kids, especially if you weren’t aware that the entire philosophy is based on maximum freedom and minimal coercion (within a carefully structure routine and environment of course!)
Yes! What may feel like “us slowing down” and letting them help is the very thing that supports their development. They're learning through doing, connecting, and contributing!
Love this, Peter! I remember you talking about this awhile back on your previous blog as well. I wrote a story on my Substack (and linked to a previous post from you about this!) about my toddler emptying the dishwasher with me with this exact thing in mind :)
I absolutely love this letter because it reminds me of when my, now 18 year-old, daughter was little. She liked nothing better than following me around to help with the housework - and it was actually helpful! We'd divide up the tasks (usually on her terms!) and the jobs would get done in half the time, leaving more time for play and stories. I have to admit that, as a teen, she's less enthusiastic about helping although very capable.
As an aside, when I worked in paediatrics as a Play Specialist, the child patients also loved 'helping' almost more than anything else. There was often a queue to help clean up after a painting or craft session and 'tidy-up time' was always a joyous, social time. I think switching from passive 'patient' to active 'helpmate' was a crucial way of preserving their integrity at a vulnerable time.
My experiences definitely fit. I was lucky enough to read a book with a similar message (from a Green perspective) when I was pregnant with my first child, and as a result, any time my children showed an interest in pitching in on the housework, I would let them do so. Yes it slowed things down - and sometimes I would just give them a spray bottle of water and a cloth so they should (fairly uselessly) wipe down whatever they liked. But they LOVED it, and they both went on to grow into sweet, helpful children and adolescents. They now have happy, healthy homes with their partners, who I think were brought up the same way.
I get so frustrated when I see parents saying they have to plonk their children in front of screens to get housework done, or meals cooked. Children are quite capable of helping, and it's a lovely way to spend time together
The studies mentioned are up to 2014 and some are decades old. I wonder if as time goes, and cross-culturally too, the contribution to chores is affected by having more and more distractions in-house. Not only we can watch anything anytime and access anything through devices, but also toys and games have become more readily available, and generally we have more indoors entertainment. Perhaps the more options there are for things to do at home, the less attractive helping out with chores looks (and that applies to the adults too! Whom the children then model).
Excellent points and kudos to thinking critically about the evidence. Cultural norms and changing environments absolutely affect behavior. So many of the books and shows that are “educational” about doing things (bathtime, school, potty training) kind of normalize that these are are enormous big deals to be feared and dislikes but then conquered as opposed to this is just a normal part of life.
I was not a leash kid per se, but my parents did tranquilize me using a variety of tactics and technologies.
I’m Harrison, an ex fine dining industry line cook. My stack "The Secret Ingredient" adapts hit restaurant recipes (mostly NYC and L.A.) for easy home cooking.
I'll try to contact you through email as well. Just saw a post of yours and found you here on substack where I am fairly new to the medium: https://adultsintheroom.substack.com/
Thanks. I kind of know this already but this is clarifying and there's some possibility information like this might penetrate a few thick 'civilised' skulls 😁🙏
This adds to my hypothesis that the problems you keep bringing up are a result of fewer moms able to be at home.
If a child is at daycare all day, they might clean up to the sound of the cleanup song, but they don't get to help an adult out with setting up crafts, because if they mess up, the hour is ruined for all the kids at the daycare. If parents are busy when they are home, with a small window to get a healthy dinner on the table and the house cleaned up, yeah, they aren't going to be able to take a child's help.
The thing I notice among American kids is there's very little middle ground to be a Capable Child. You're either a forever baby with cartoons and toys, or you're a parentified teen forgoing everything fun to take care of your many siblings, a la Shari Franke.
In a writing workshop, an immigrant friend was reading from her memoir about working in the family business, where she took customer orders and helped fulfilling them. I found it relatable, having helped my mom out with her business back home in child-appropriate ways. The rest of the workshop, who had been mostly raised in the US, expressed concern over Child Labor.
I founded an early childhood center (child care/toddler and preschool programs) using the LifeWays model. It emphasizes teaching children about life by engaging them in domestic activities. Tasks like kneading dough before baking the buns for snack, washing their chairs with a wet sock on their hands, setting the table, or sweeping the floor were all consider fun activities for the children. The more adults modeled them and allowed children to practice them, the more successful they were. It was a confidence builder for the children who got to be bread-bakers, cleaners, gardeners and more. They were making valuable and practical contributions to their community, learning skills along the way. For a child, there is no distinction between work and play.
I think you’re absolutely right about the daycare/ working moms/ time crunch affecting things.
When I babysit my friends’ kids and our next activity is “go do whatever we want in the yard for an hour,” we can absolutely spend 10 or more minutes by the door putting shoes on to go outside. I’ll let the 3 year old try and put his socks on and only go in for an assist if asked, and first I will model how to pinch the sides of the socks long actually assisting.
This is not a time-efficient activity.
It can be such a lovely and zen moment if you get into it. And watching that lightbulb of “I did it myself” is a joy to behold.
It does NOT happen if you’re late for work or daycare or baseball. Or if you’re frazzled, sleep deprived, and have used up every ounce of patience in other ways. Or if your kid hasn’t seen you all day and wants your attention and will only repeat “mommy do it” to the point of tears.
Making room for them to help us certainly a horizon worth aiming at, but there are so many reasons it doesn’t “just happen” by itself.
As a first time mom, my instinct is to do it myself. But my kid is very insistent from before she was verbal, about doing things by herself. It would bother me when she didn't take instruction much, but she wants to try to do everything by herself, and she's good at asking for help when she's overwhelmed. I realized this is such a vital skill and instinct to develop and a lot of us don't get this quite right because we haven't struggled enough in the presence of someone who can teach us.
I bet there are really loving intentions behind your first instinct to “just do it.” At first they’re literally helpless so you have to! And doing it is modeling it, not to mention an expression of your love.
It’s awesome that your daughter is good at asking for help!
I don’t have children but I work with them. First as a behavior therapist and now as a speech therapist (which can be a lot of functional communication skills beyond just correcting speech sounds).
It’s been astonishing what teaching “ask for help” can do to curb distress and tantrums even in the most reactive and difficult kids. It can work magic in sign language with nonverbal or preverbal kids as well.
There is no greater crime than giving unsolicited parenting advice, but you might appreciate this:
After asking for help, the best and most transformative thing I’ve ever worked on, when they’re ready, is a pair of questions:
“What’s the problem?”
and “What’s the solution?”
Omg… I think I needed to read these transformative last questions right now… thank you ♥️
My kids did help as toddlers in the way you describe—but they stopped when they got older. An additional theory is that it’s not only “wanting to help” than explains a toddler’s desire to want to help with household tasks, it’s also curiosity and a desire to feel capable. Once they’ve proved to themselves that they can do it, they aren’t as interested in doing it (eg learning how to wash a dish.) Unfortunately, this desire to feel capable doing chores does not continue because the chores don’t get increasingly complex—it doesn’t take very long to be competent in most every routine chore that needs to be done around the house, with the exception of cooking.
I also think the culture around the rubs off (chores are boring, mindless and to be avoided) even if you try to create your own family culture.
However, my older children have expressed interest in “owning” a task. The more freedom they have in deciding when and how the job gets done the better, something that I think resonates with your writing.
Yes, the more they can decide what and how to do it the more they will want to do it. Also, as kids get older the will want to take on more challenging chores. e.g. cooking dinner, not just washing dishes.
Sadly, restaurant and microwave food is killing creative and complex cooking chores :(
I remember telling my boys that everyone helped in our house. Not long after that my oldest son complained that it wasn't fair that his younger brother always got to set the table--he wanted a turn too.
Tom Sawyer getting half the boys in the neighborhood to paint Aunt Polly’s fence for him by rebranding it as a rare privilege for cool & highly-skilled people ✅
My husband recently reminded me of what I had said to him 20 years ago: "Even though it takes more time to complete a task when you let our little kids help you with it, it's worth it. They gain a skill, they spend time with you, and if you don't do it now, they won't want to do it later."
He reminded me because it turned out to be true.
When my son was a toddler, he always helped clean up his room and feed the dog and walk the dog with me. Then as an elementary aged boy, I claimed "dumb" a lot and said I didn't know how to do something and let him figure it out with me.
Now as a tween, he actually knows how to do a lot of things I actually don't know how to do including building self-assembly furniture, putting air in the car tires, mowing the lawn, using the leaf blower, and many other things.
Now, I rely on him for a lot of things and he is happy to help. I like how he is capable, a necessary trait in becoming a good citizen.
This is a core concept in Montessori infant and toddler environments. The space is designed to allow toddlers independence and the ability to care for themselves, their friends and the physical environment.
I was going to mention Montessori!!
I know of parents who find Montessori schools “eerie” when they visit them. Because during certain tasks (even stuff like table setting and clean up) even very young kids are extremely focused and quiet and industrious, which is like a bear riding a tricycle if you have “normal” kids these days. I guess it would seem like they’ve drugged and brainwashed these kids, especially if you weren’t aware that the entire philosophy is based on maximum freedom and minimal coercion (within a carefully structure routine and environment of course!)
Yes! What may feel like “us slowing down” and letting them help is the very thing that supports their development. They're learning through doing, connecting, and contributing!
Love this, Peter! I remember you talking about this awhile back on your previous blog as well. I wrote a story on my Substack (and linked to a previous post from you about this!) about my toddler emptying the dishwasher with me with this exact thing in mind :)
https://partnershipparenting.substack.com/p/my-favorite-part-of-the-day-is-emptying
I absolutely love this letter because it reminds me of when my, now 18 year-old, daughter was little. She liked nothing better than following me around to help with the housework - and it was actually helpful! We'd divide up the tasks (usually on her terms!) and the jobs would get done in half the time, leaving more time for play and stories. I have to admit that, as a teen, she's less enthusiastic about helping although very capable.
As an aside, when I worked in paediatrics as a Play Specialist, the child patients also loved 'helping' almost more than anything else. There was often a queue to help clean up after a painting or craft session and 'tidy-up time' was always a joyous, social time. I think switching from passive 'patient' to active 'helpmate' was a crucial way of preserving their integrity at a vulnerable time.
My experiences definitely fit. I was lucky enough to read a book with a similar message (from a Green perspective) when I was pregnant with my first child, and as a result, any time my children showed an interest in pitching in on the housework, I would let them do so. Yes it slowed things down - and sometimes I would just give them a spray bottle of water and a cloth so they should (fairly uselessly) wipe down whatever they liked. But they LOVED it, and they both went on to grow into sweet, helpful children and adolescents. They now have happy, healthy homes with their partners, who I think were brought up the same way.
I get so frustrated when I see parents saying they have to plonk their children in front of screens to get housework done, or meals cooked. Children are quite capable of helping, and it's a lovely way to spend time together
The studies mentioned are up to 2014 and some are decades old. I wonder if as time goes, and cross-culturally too, the contribution to chores is affected by having more and more distractions in-house. Not only we can watch anything anytime and access anything through devices, but also toys and games have become more readily available, and generally we have more indoors entertainment. Perhaps the more options there are for things to do at home, the less attractive helping out with chores looks (and that applies to the adults too! Whom the children then model).
People do complain about how kids won't play with toys and just want kitchen utensils
Excellent points and kudos to thinking critically about the evidence. Cultural norms and changing environments absolutely affect behavior. So many of the books and shows that are “educational” about doing things (bathtime, school, potty training) kind of normalize that these are are enormous big deals to be feared and dislikes but then conquered as opposed to this is just a normal part of life.
Any specific tips on how to introduce this with older (and neurodiverse) children?
I was not a leash kid per se, but my parents did tranquilize me using a variety of tactics and technologies.
I’m Harrison, an ex fine dining industry line cook. My stack "The Secret Ingredient" adapts hit restaurant recipes (mostly NYC and L.A.) for easy home cooking.
check us out:
https://thesecretingredient.substack.com
Would like to connect to ask if you would consider endorsing a forthcoming book called Kids these days:
https://www.kidsthesedaysbook.com/
I'll try to contact you through email as well. Just saw a post of yours and found you here on substack where I am fairly new to the medium: https://adultsintheroom.substack.com/
Look forward t hearing from you, be well, Nevin
Three very interesting thoughts comes to mind.
Kids help someone because they want to become friends.
But adults in the west, especially teachers, don't want to be friends with kids.
Schools kill all the good will, between adults and kids.
&
Why do toddlers help with the house chores?
Because toddlers see house chores as funny games.
But teenagers have already mastered those games,
So just like tic-tac-toe, it's no fun. The fun is gone.
&
Why do you want to be a part of your family?
Don't lets family tradition kills your creative thoughts.
I thought Peter Gray loved free play.
And hated boring household chores.
The agricultural revolution killed free play.
Because the kids had to be a part of the family.
Thanks. I kind of know this already but this is clarifying and there's some possibility information like this might penetrate a few thick 'civilised' skulls 😁🙏