The Things I Love Most

Tips To Enjoying Life With Your Family

Teaching your kids to be independent!

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I had the BEST weekend away at Woman’s Conference! It’s wonderful spiritual weekend, and if you ever get a chance to go, GO!! Now on to my post for this week!
How many times a day do we say to our kids, “no you can’t vacuum”, “just go out of the kitchen while I get dinner ready”, or we just go make their beds so they look good? Well, I’ll be the first to admit that it does come out of my mouth every once in a while. But for the last few months I figured something out!…Let them Help!
 
Recently I read this GREAT book about Teaching your kids to be independent.  How to teach your kids to like work, save money, and to one day be independent. Don’t we all want our kids to be “Truly Independent” one day. It is the hardest thing for me to think about my kids growing up and being big and on their own. But if we don’t teach them now when they are young then it will be harder for them as they get older. I think as a parent one of the hardest things to do is to LET our kids help or do it by themselves. Sometimes it is faster, easier, or less messy if we, as parents, do it ourselves. But what is this teaching our kids? Not much. One of the teachers this week at Woman’s Conference talking about teaching your children the joy of work said “Our attempts to make things easier for our children will only destroy them.” I have seen this in people I know, and when they get married they still rely on their parents to do things for them or they just don’t know how to do things, and it can really affect you as an adult.
 
I remember as a kid I traded off jobs about every six months. I cleaned the bathrooms every day for that time {Yup I said everyday, we had really clean bathrooms} and by the time I was done I cleaned it really well and fast, then I moved on to Vacuuming and other chores! My mom taught me to cook, I learned to do laundry on my own and to even mow the lawn.
 
In this book one of the main things that I love was a list of age appropriate tasks and when and how to teach your children them. I recommend buying the book, but if you just look at the list it will, I’m sure, teach you a ton and help you know where to start!
 
Training
She also writes about training your kids to learn a new task, and that you can’t just teach them once and expect them to know how to do it the next time. She said she gives her kids a training session 10X and then they should be able to do it on their own!
 
One of my favorite quotes is by Joseph Smith and it says “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
 
This is a mix of my list, a list from the book and some suggestions I got from Woman’s Conference.
    • Work along side them
    • Don’t expect them to understand how to do it the first time
    • Recognize limitations or Lack of experience (age appropriate tasks)
    • Set realistic expectation
    • Teach by working together 10 X
    • Give praise and give it often, but don’t give praise if done bad, or else they will keep doing it bad. Don’t be mean in correcting, just help them understand a way to do it better!
    • Teach your children to serve others
    • See work as a blessing.
I got the list sent to me from the Author. If you go here you can get it. It has been fun to work on with my kids. Some of the things I have switched around or wanted to teach earlier or later. Her main things is that they are taught all this by the time they leave the house! It’s a great list, so go here and get it!
CLICK ON THE CARTOON FAMILY PICTURE under Home and family about half way down and you’ll get the list.

 

Comments

  2. I have seen this before at Desert Book, but hadn’t picked it up. Now I am curious and think I should read it! Thanks for the tip!