Develop Responsibility in Your Child - Part I

Dear parents,

Parenting is hard work, but it doesn’t have to be stressful. One way you can reduce your stress is to let your child to take on responsibility with jobs at home. There are a lot of ways your child can do this and today we will look at how to implement this and the benefits that it will bring.

WHEN SHOULD YOU GIVE YOUR CHILD MORE RESPONSIBILITY?

While there are many different factors to consider when deciding when to give your child more responsibility, there are a few key things to keep in mind:

Age is not always a good indicator of whether a child is ready for a particular job or responsibility. All kids develop at different rates and maturity levels differ too. This is why I’m not a fan of the graded by-age chore charts! Take each kid as their own person and try not to compare them to older si-blings.

If you fall into the A-type, micro-managing perfectionist personality slot, and delegating a job is going to create more stress rather than less, then have a rethink. Delegating jobs is supposed to make your life easier and help the child build up their skills, not turn the home into a hot mess of stress.

Start young. The younger the better. I can’t count the number of times people have told me that toddlers do nothing but create a mess and can’t clean up after themselves. It’s simply not true. When using Montessori from home and in school we use something called Work Cycle which teaches the child from a very early age to clean up after themselves.

No, they might not do the job perfectly but with practice, they will get better. What is does need is consistency from you. Helping them to do the work and reminding them when they forget – which they will because you know, toddlers have a very busy schedule !

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Feel free to contact me if you want more insight:
awallart.steppingstones@gmail.com
Alain Wallart, Director of courses