Training and Doing

"Life is Not a Spectator Sport" by Darla Jackson
Part 3



The Worth of “Doing” Work

In addition to “playing” kinds of “doing” children need to be involved in lots of “working” kinds of “doing.” Helping Mom and Dad with household chores is the training ground for adult living. Competency is such an important part of a child's self-concept. Every time a child masters an essential life skill a brick is laid for a solid foundation for his life.

One of the problems that curtails “doing” is that most children today live in the city. I'm old enough to have peers who helped with farm tasks — gathering eggs, milking, and doing other chores. I myself helped with gardening, quilting, sewing, mending, ironing, cooking and canning. Tasks for children to learn to do are greatly minimized when families have no animals to care for, no garden to tend or to can produce from.

Most of us today cannot imagine spending days quilting by hand when for just a few dollars you can buy perfectly good quilts in the store. And few sew their own clothes when you can go to a 90% off sale at Kohl's. Most families wear perma-pressed clothes that they do not iron and which they discard instead of mending. We don't have to plant and weed and water and pick and shell peas or shuck corn or even wash bugs out of the lettuce! We can easily fix dinner by throwing some ready-to-eat package in the microwave or a ready to bake pizza into the oven.

I am not proposing or wishing we could go back to the “good old days,” when most of the day was spent on survival chores. I recently read about the life of Abigail Adams, wife of U.S. President John Adams. There is nothing to be nostalgic about back breaking work from 5 in the morning till 10 at night. But heaven only knows, even in the 21st century plenty of tasks are still necessary to keeping a household running — and children can be part of the “doing” early on.  We do children no favor by playing maid, cook, and personal servant, leaving them out of important training for life.

Real training means more than saying “go clean your room.” Some parenting experts suggest we post checklists, and specify which level of “clean” we mean, and not take for granted that a child knows how to do any of the tasks unless we have done it with them and tutored them on each step.  An example of a checklist for cleaning room for an older child would be:

    Make bed. Change sheets when necessary.
    Pull everything our from under the bed and put away.
    Pick up everything on the floor and put in proper places.
    Vacuum thoroughly and dust.
    Straighten closet and drawers. Sort and discard unused items.
    Wash window and light fixture.
    Polish furniture.

Now, which of these things do you want done when you say, “go clean your room? Obviously some of the above tasks would only need to be done once every few weeks, others daily. A child needs to know that “cleaning a room” does not just mean picking up what is lying around. And they need to know what you expect when you make a request. The same principle applies for each area of training in daily tasks. Each item on a checklist involves “doing.” And each involves life skills that can increase a child's competency and make life easier for him in the long run.

Living Life Fully Means Doing

In summary, life is not meant to be a spectator sport. We were not born to watch the adventures of others on the screen of life. We were meant to be the stars of our own life story. We were born to do much more than watch. True, much can be learned from observing, but what is the worth of the lessons if we don't quickly apply them in our own “doing”?

Wisdom dictates that we encourage our children to do. Parents and grandparents can so easily take the path of least resistance, the easy way out of real involvement with children and sit them in front of mesmerizing videos and TV programs hour after hour. Sometimes the rowdiest children will calm right down and seem almost hypnotized by the bright colors and rapidly changing images.

I'm the first to applaud the educational videos available and I know my grandchildren are among the smartest in the world partly because of all they've learned from them. But even more so because they've been encouraged in activities that require:

    • Scanning
    • Practicing motor skills, gross or fine
    • Practicing eye-hand coordination
    • Using more than two senses
    • Asking questions
    • Exploring
    • Exercising initiative or motivation
    • Being challenged
    • Solving problems
    • Thinking analytically
    • Exercising imagination
    • Practicing communication skills
    • Being either creative or constructive

Our challenge as adults is to encourage the doing that fits those criteria! This summer, let's not just watch others have fun, watch others live and learn and develop skills. Let's all dive into doing!

 

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