I’m only a couple chapters into Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost ARt of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans, but I think it may be a game changer for me and my family. It’s not about trying new strategies (different kinds of chore charts, incentives or consequences) in the same situations, it’s about changing the situations themselves. It’s not a new approach to an old problem, but recognizing it as a different problem entirely.
I knew it was going to change things significantly for me when I read this paragraph:
Rebecca tells me, “We have mothers tell us things like, ‘I need to do a chore very quickly, and if my toddler tries to help, he makes a mess. So I’d rather do it myself than having them helping.'” In many instances, parents with Western backgrounds tell their toddlers to go and play while they do chores. Or give their child a screen. If you think about it, we are telling the child not to pay attention, not to help. We are telling them, this chore is not for you. Without realizing it, we cut short a toddler’s eagerness to help, and we segregate the from useful activities.
pg 58, Hunt, Gather, Parent. HunMichaeleen Doucleff, Phd.
Have you ever read a thing and recognized its truth and wondered how you never recognized that truth before because it is so obvious?
I realize this is not rocket science, but it feels profound.
When our kids are young and learning, we tell them to go play, or watch TV while we clean up, and then later when they are older we are offended or resentful that they would just play or watch TV while we clean up. Even though that is EXACTLY WHAT WE TAUGHT THEM TO DO.
Why did I not realize I was doing that? Because I absolutely was doing that. Absolutely. I think I actually did that MORE than most parents because I am not very good at cleaning up. “Chores at home” is maybe my biggest weak spot – the thing in life I do least well. I have always felt lacking in that area, and it’s so hard for me to do it myself, I could never bring a kid into the equation. Not only would the chore not get done, but I’d be more frustrated that I couldn’t really do it.
But then, years later, I’m frustrated that my kids won’t get off their butts and help. I know it’s because they don’t know how, I know that I have never taught them (because how do you teach someone to do something you can’t do yourself!?) but I never recognized that in playing and watching TV while I walked around cleaning up or doing dishes, or making a meal, they were doing EXACTLY what I trained them to do – stay out of my way and entertain themselves while I get something I can’t do very well done.
At the beginning of the pandemic I realized that we had an opportunity to teach our kids more independence and responsibility. Early on I tried to give them more tasks. I would tell them how to do something a few times (like fold their laundry or load the dishwasher) but they were clearly overwhelmed and didn’t feel confident in their abilities. As my husband and I became more and more overwhelmed by our attempts to manage our kids’ distance learning while also working full time from home, my efforts fell by the wayside. They clearly couldn’t learn to do these things and I didn’t have the time to teach them. It felt more tedious and time consuming to manage them doing their chores than just doing them myself. The return on investment just didn’t make sense.
I made so many mistakes in those early attempts. Instead of asking them to help me I tried to hand over, in its entirety, a very complicated job, and then felt frustrated when they couldn’t master it quickly. I wanted very little effort on my part (a couple of quick explanations and quicker examples) to yield immediate and satisfactory results. I was expecting the impossible.
I knew I was doing something wrong, but I had no idea how to do it right.
What I should have done, and what I’m doing now, is asking them to help me when I’m doing something that needs to be done. I should have broken tasks into smaller steps and asked them to help consistently with just some of those steps, while I was there to guide them.
We have always picked up the house together, but now I have them check certain areas and tell them exactly where the things they find there should go. I have my daughter take all the things out of the kitchen and explain that I need the floor clear so I can use the stream cleaner. Then I have her put everything back. She is only learning a part of the task, but her help is valued (moving the stuff is my LEAST favorite part of cleaning floors), and she will have that step mastered later when she learns what comes next.
Whenever the dishwasher needs to be emptied I ask a kid to come and help me. My daughter loves to put away the silverware and my son can hand me dishes to put away in cabinets that he can’t reach. When we load the dishwasher I rinse the dishes and they put them in the racks.
When I fold the 50 small towels we keep in the kitchen in place of paper towels, the kids help me fold them into imperfect squares and stack them into messy piles. It takes them forever to fold each one, but we talk while we do it and they’ll get better as time goes by.
This week my daughter took the frozen waffles out of the freezer, put them in the toaster over, checked the settings and turned it for three mornings before she felt confident enough to reach in and turn them over. Tomorrow she is excited to do all of it herself. My son isn’t interested in making himself breakfast yet but he’s filling up his own water bottle. Small steps help them gain confidence, and show them they can take care of some of their own needs.
We’ve only been working at this a week, but I swear it’s made a huge difference. Every night the main living areas are picked up and I spend a full minute talking about how much more calm I feel when my surroundings are neat and clean. I thank them for being a part of our team, and making things feel manageable. My daughter is always very happy to help, and I can see it’s doing wonders for her self image to feel she’s a valued part of something bigger than herself. My son is less inclined to step in when he isn’t asked but he’s only had one big tantrum about helping and I let it go quickly and he almost immediately came in, apologized, and did what I had asked. It turns out he thought the task was much bigger and when he saw it only took us five minutes he was relieved. The next time I asked for help with that task he was happy to do it.
I’m barely 100 pages into this book and it’s already changed my life. I really do think we will keep doing including our kids in the basic maintenance of our lives and in a couple of years our kids will be different people because of it. I will be a different person too, a happier, less stressed parent who is grateful for how much her kids help around the house. I feel like I know HOW to do this now. I feel like I know WHY it will work.
Yesterday I was regretting that I didn’t find this book at the beginning of the pandemic (it hadn’t been published yet so I can’t be too mad at myself), but I think I needed this year to beef up my own skills and confidence around the house, so that learning about this could be effective. I think maybe I can do this with my kids now, because I’ve had a year at home to find a rhythm to things. Every day I know what needs to be done and I think of how I can ask the kids to help me do it. Before I don’t know if could have done that. Maybe, if we keep including them in tasks around the house, by next school year their participation will be second nature – for all of us.
Even if it takes longer than that it will be worth it. I’m confident that, for me and my family, this is a game changer.
Totally agree! Kids are so much more competent and able to contribute than we often give them credit for.
That has been one of the huge positive things to come out of the pandemic. My kids (5th and 6th grade) each are responsible for making family dinner one night a week. The 5th grader has also taken to baking — she made (all by herself) amazing chocolate chip cookies yesterday. They both have learned to do laundry and clean up after dinner. We really feel more like a team.
That is awesome. My daughter loves to peel vegetables and she helps her dad with that a lot (I also don’t really cook!) and they have been putting their own clothes away even if they don’t fold them yet. There have been some smaller things, but I think since we used to do clean up in huge intense batches it was too much for us to figure out how to have them help. Now that we’re doing smaller tasks every day it makes a lot more sense.
This has been very much my experience too! I didn’t read that book, but I watched a video as part of an inservice training at school about time management, where the guy said that to delegate a task you have to spend 30x the amount of time you normally spend just doing it yourself just teaching someone else to do it. But compare this to the amount of time you spend doing that task yourself in a year. This was for a business setting, so I think that household tasks take less time to teach. But I’ve applied it to cleaning the bathroom and doing laundry with our kids and my 12 year old now can clean the bathroom by herself, decently well (definitely not perfectly well but still so worth it). It took about 5x of doing it together and directing each step, I think. Definitely not 30x! But yeah, I totally hear you. the payoff is worth it!
My daughter can also clean their bathroom now (it’s the upstairs bathroom so we all use it a lot) and I appreciate that because now we have two bathrooms so I’m glad I don’t have to clean them both. She hasn’t really learned to see that it needs to be cleaned and do it herself yet, but when I say it’s time to do it, she does it and well enough. Now I need to teacher her to clean their bathtub, which seems to need cleaning WAY less than ours. Maybe kids are just less gross before adolescence?
I’m so glad you found this book – it definitely sounds life changing for you! I think growing up as one of five kids we just naturally had to always chip in and help with everything because there’s no way my mom was doing it all, so that’s the way I’ve always parented as well (there are plenty of things I’m terrible at as a parent, but this is one aspect I’ve actually done well on, ha!). My kids empty the dishwasher every morning before breakfast, put away their own laundry, help cook dinner & clean every night, etc. It really is more and more helpful every year. I’m so excited to see how you’re feeling about this technique – not just a year from now, but even a month from now. Yay!!!
I was one of two and my mom (who was one of 12) was incredibly efficient in her habits and didn’t include us much. I had to clean the bathroom at some point, and manage my own room and maybe empty the dishwasher? But she always had to ask me, always. I think I was just never inherently good at this stuff (maybe a mixture of who I am and my ADHD) and my dad never helped so I saw that happening too. I don’t really know. She definitely tried, but for whatever reason I didn’t grow up to be a house managing dynamo like her. I hope I can do better by my own kids, because these competencies will make their lives better.
I’m getting interested in this book! I may have to get it. A therapist we have worked with in the past also emphasized chores as important for kids to feel like part of the family. I would say I’m good but not consistent with this. If my kids express interest or curiosity in something I try really hard to include them if at all possible. They both like baking a lot which is great / my husband had no idea how to do anything at all in the kitchen until college and I know he really regrets that. I also ask for help sorting and “folding” laundry on occasion but we don’t have a regular chore schedule. Maybe we should. I also try hard to stick to the philosophy of “if you make a mess you clean it up” with moderate levels of success. Sometimes it’s like you help mom by doing 5 percent of the cleaning…
I’m also terrible at chores so i don’t know how to instruct my kids either. It’s interesting. I don’t know any other adults that would also say they are not good at cleaning. I feel like it’s just assumed that we can all figure it out but I really am very ineffective at cleaning anything! It was refreshing to hear you say the same. My 7 year old can now serve himself a simple breakfast – cereal and milk with raisins or a toasted waffle. He will also prepare it for his brother and he can get water and milk for himself. He clears his plate after dinner. He puts away toys with A LOT of prodding. But that’s it! Both boys walked and stood independently late so when they were very young and not yet defiant (around 12-18 months) they couldn’t really stand on a stool and watch me cook so I just got used to them playing during chore time. And then I never corrected it!
Could not agree with you more! We’ve gotten our daughter to learn to make herself food by coaching her through various steps. She still doesn’t cook on the stove, but she can use the microwave, which is a start. We also got her cleaning the floors. Yes we had to help her at first, but now she’s pretty independent. It turn out doing chores well requires practice, just like any other skill. Whodathunk?!
That’s brilliant news. I’m so glad they’re responding well to this. My SIL complains that her kids (who are all teenagers with one at university) never help cook dinner. Yet when I suggested that the two oldest could have a night a week to cook for the family (as I have friends whose much younger kids do that) she made all the excuses why it wouldn’t work. So I don’t listen to her complain any more! LOL
Whoa, I have also been terrible at this. Wow, I wish I could turn back time and have them participate in chores more, but I guess I just need to keep this in mind moving forward.
My mom never involved us in anything either, and it took me a long time to learn how to do simple things like use a knife correctly, clean properly, do laundry efficiently. She was a stay-at-home who was pretty efficient and got everything done during the school day, including putting our clothes in our drawers.
My kids do minimal things (put away laundry, trash), and all their chores are weekly, not part of the day to day. They rarely help with cooking/kitchen stuff which is the BANE of my existence. If my 5th grader could learn one simple meal and make it weekly, it’d be a HUGE change in our home. I need to read this book it sounds like.
Guilty of the same thing over here!! I always feel it is easier and faster to just do the chores myself, but that is really a disservice to my child. I love your blog by the way. I love reading all your thoughts…I may not always comment but you are being heard
So I ended up reading this book largely based on your recommendation and I liked it a lot! Some thoughts were not new to me- trying to stay calm takes up like 70 percent of my energy win with my kids!! Would love to read other thoughts you have on later parts of the book! I don’t have any friends who read parenting books so I don’t have any one to chat with about this!
Yes! I’m so excited to read it. I will definitely write about it again! I just need to get through the end of the school year. So close!