Teaching Our Children to Work: Part I

At What Age Should Work Begin?

Teaching our children to work is a vital task that will last most of their childhood. There are so many facets to this, that I will be posting a three-part series on Teaching Our Children to Work, with several printables and charts for you to use. 
The first question is when do we teach our children to work? 

I really believe that it is never too early to teach your child how to work. I'm sure you've seen one of those posters (they're often hanging up in preschool/kindergarten classrooms or Sunday School rooms) with Robert Fulghum's poem, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten:

Although I know that we are always learning, growing and changing, to some extent, this little poem is true. Between birth and around six years old, our children learn a tremendous amount of life-long lessons and are already well on their way to having their characters shaped. That's why I believe it is so important to begin teaching our children to work from a young age. In the beginning, the goal isn't even so much teaching them how to complete specific tasks as it is shaping how they see work. I want my children to see the value of work and to know that the work they do is of vital importance. This prepares them for more difficult jobs when they are older, trains their minds and bodies to work, builds their confidence and self-esteem, teaches them diligence, instills family values and even introduces the benefits of teamwork.​

As soon as they can toddle around, they can "help" work. As you go about your work, make them a part of it. Work becomes something familiar, a part of their daily routine. Use this as an opportunity to speak positive words and encouragement (for example, telling them what a good job they did and how much you enjoyed having their help), which builds a child's confidence to try new things.
Having your toddler work alongside you provides a wealth of natural, early learning opportunities.  For example, when folding laundry, have them try to find any pink socks in the basket (colors), count the number of towels in the pile (numbers), and tell them a washcloth is square  (shapes). Education and work become a natural part of their life, like play.
A final benefit of including a toddler in your work is the blessing of time spent together. While preparing for this series, some of my own children (now 15, 13, and 12), reminded me of something I used to do make our chore time together fun. When dusting furniture, I put old socks on their hands and let them go around polishing the furniture. Sometimes we would turn on loud music and dance while we cleaned. It seemed like such a little, silly thing at the time and I'm not sure the furniture actually looked any cleaner when we were finished, but the children remembered it fondly years later.

Other than having toddlers learn to work by helping you, they also can learn to work by cleaning up their own messes.  You can use clean up time to reinforce the benefits of work and a positive attitude toward it. Say something like, "It's clean-up time! In our family we all help out and work together." Then give the child a specific task and help them complete it, "Help Mommy put the blocks in the bucket." This, coupled with plenty of praise when the job is done, is usually all the incentive most toddlers need to begin working. For some of my children, I made up silly songs about the work we were doing (such as my memorable and classic composition entitled, Snap the Beans) or sang a song called You Can Be a Helper from a Miss Pattycake video (substituting the child's name):

You can be a helper; you can lend a hand.
You can be a helper; oh, yes you can!
You can be a helper; you can lend a hand.
You can be a helper; oh, yes you can!
Because it's much for fun when everyone does their little part.
​Like busy bees, just pitch in please and soon the job is done!

My little ones loved this song and quickly learned to sing along. Later, they would pretty much command me to sing it every time we cleaned up. (On second thought, you might not want to get that one started in your home!)
Of course, there are times when children don't want to work, even with the songs and encouragement. Without getting into the nitty gritty of discipline styles (that's a whole separate series!), you will need to determine early on how you will reinforce to your child that obedience is not optional. Training a child to work and training them to obey go hand-in-hand. 

Part II of this series will share some specific, age-appropriate tasks for children of all ages.
I would love to hear some of the ways you have taught your younger children to work!

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