Creating a culture that breeds success (one dish at a time...)
So if your house is like mine, school holidays have descended upon you in full force. The weight of the task of constantly having all your little people around you when you would usually have a quiet moment to throw dinner together or clean the house, is now bearing heavy on your shoulders. As much as you feel the strain some days in some moments, other moments are fun and careless as the everyday routine is thrown out the window and exchanged for a looser schedule of fun and freedom.
It is a miracle I have gotten a Blog post up this week and for this I will reward myself with chocolate. Daylight savings doesn't help much either with kids wide awake way past their bedtime cutting into the little bit of 'quiet time'' I usually utilise to allow my mushy brain to function at adult-level capacity. The rest of the week's 'unproductiveness' aside, right now I have my 8 year old reading on a chair next to me while I type and my 5 year old on the lounge floor colouring in. He just snuck out of bed and started colouring in quietly on the floor and I've pretended I haven't seen him...he is being so quiet and is obviously not tired. So for now, I have some time to reflect.I was pondering life in the car yesterday and was fascinated by how much of my time with my kids was repeating things. This occurred to me when I obligingly played my youngest son's favourite song for the third time only to realise I was saying 'yes' when the bigger two complained. I then went home to read a book to the kids and was asked by the younger ones to read it again! After we had just read it. Twice. This kind of behaviour is typical for younger kids and it goes for our instructions too. So often our frustration with parenting is the repeating. The. Constant. Repeating!!! Whether it's asking the kids to brush their teeth, clean their rooms or do an errand, for them to listen FIRST time is a miracle! Although that doesn't stop us aiming for that goal.
I was listening to something earlier this week where the parents were talking about chores and how how repeating chores each day aids building resilient kids. Resilient kids learn resilience by practicing doing things they don't ''feel' like doing. I am not the best at this and hence why I am thinking about this and setting myself a mum-challenge! This particular family has made it normal for the kids to wake up and do chores first, before continuing with the day. I think the culture of our homes is a huge factor in this. Is it expected that the kids wake up and help with things in the home? Or is it expected that we will clean up after them? There are all sorts of unwritten expectations that create a culture in our homes. This can either be a culture of responsibility and hard work or a culture entitlement and expecting others to do everything for you.
I have been challenged afresh to actively work on creating the culture we have in our home and to make sure in this age of convenience, that their are chores, tasks and activities that my kids HAVE to do each day or week. It is in this forcing yourself to complete a task that is not particularly enjoyable, that you learn discipline and perseverance. It is in the mundane that you learn to push through what you don't feel like doing and learn to derive a sense of satisfaction from a job completed.
Resilience or 'grit'as some people refer to it are not qualities easily bred in kids today. They do not just evolve into resilient kids by mistake as we raise them. Once upon a time life and survival was reliant on the whole family pulling their weight. Their were cows to milk, land to work.meals to prepare from scratch, trades to learn from young and chores to do to keep the household running. No matter what age you were, you were needed and you had a place. In this day and age of convenience foods, virtual babysitters and parents being busier than ever with everything except their children, there is very little time and energy left over to teach kids to do things they don't want to do. This will obviously involve crying,whining, procrastinating and tantrums at some point or another which is why it such a trap to do everything yourself! For parents who are busy and for the most part, tired (!!!) teaching kids to follow-through, teaching them to do a job well and to be consistent is not an appealing journey to embark on.
When I looked into this, research showed that those children who do have a set of chores have higher self-esteem, are more responsible, and are better able to deal with frustration and delayed gratification, all of which contribute to greater success in school. I also read this week, in some research by Marty Rossman that involving children in household tasks at an early age can have a positive impact later in life. In fact, he says the best predictor of young adults’ success in their mid-20’s was that they participated in household tasks when they were three or four.
I think part of the problem is this modern day concept that kids are supposed to be happy. The problem with this philosophy is, everything we need to teach our kids for their future benefit is not fun in the short term! I have yet to find a toddler who will happily skip off and make their bed (after the novelty wears off, that is), I have yet to find a child who will willingly volunteer to do the dishes after dinner (definitely not my kids). The pendulum has swung so far over that parents are made to feel guilty if their children are sad or unhappy. I know, I worked in the toy department of The Warehouse for years. I would see determined parents saying 'no' to nagging children who, by the end of their shop, triumphantly walked out with the toy that the parent initially said no to. This happened time and time again. The children got what they wanted. Everything in me wanted to hand these exasperated parents a coffee, pat them on the back and say, "Come on, you can do this, stay strong!" Why was this scenario the norm? I believe it is because parents are made to feel SO guilty if kids are throwing a tantrum. We are made to feel like we're bad parent unless our kids are walking around contented all the time. I feel like we need to have signs ready that we can hold up to concerned passers by saying, 'don't worry, learning in progress!'
As a parent I want to keep myself accountable to be training my kids for life! That means often sacrificing happy kids for kids in training which is not easy and definitely not always fun. BUT it is the option with the best long term results. I want kids who are responsible, who are resilient, who learn how to redefine their limits because they push through and don't give up when a job is 'too hard'. All this comes from home, in the early years. I don't want to be one of those mums who complain about my teenagers who don't help out around the house (God forbid!!). I don't want to be the mum of kids who don't have what it takes to be successful because I never gave them the opportunity to push through and learn that they CAN do it, and they need to do it, even when they don't feel like it.
This parenting life is all about training, coaching and leading our young people to be the best version of themselves. What a job! What a unique calling! To think that we will get the end result we want without the hard yards is kidding ourselves and setting ourselves up for disappointment. I think that with anything in life. we get out of it what we put in. I for one am thankful that as meaningless as some of the 'teaching sessions' seem when we're trying to get our kids to learn something, that whatever is deposited into them WILL in due season bear fruit, IF (big IF) we do not give up.
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