If you read the Toronto Star on the weekend (April 17), you may have seen an article titled “Hey Kids, Why Is Dad Taking Out The Trash?” by Andrea Gordon, in the Weekend Living Section.  It was a great article about why doing household chores is important for kids and the benefits they receive from pitching in.

I’ve mentioned before that I think getting children involved in running the house is very important, but here are some thoughts from the article that might catch your attention:

• A research study mentioned in the article, conducted in 2002 at the University of Minnesota by professor Marty Rossman, discovered that children “who began doing household tasks at an early age grew into more well-adjusted adults.”  The kids in her study who began doing chores in the youngest age group, which was preschool, were the most “responsible, confident, and able to take care of themselves in adulthood.”
• Other researchers completed a review of parenting magazines, dating back to 1925, in which they found that discussion of involving children in household chores dropped off in the 1980’s.

It’s interesting to note that the petering out of the topic of chores in parenting magazines coincides with the so-called “self esteem” movement in parenting.  This parenting approach suggested that the way to help kids have healthy self esteem was to praise and recognize them for everything they do.  The problem is, those kids are now young adults, and there has also been much discussion in the media about the flood of unprepared, pampered employees in the marketplace, who have their moms set up their job interviews and then negotiate their salaries on their behalf, and who feel they should be rewarded, or at least recognized, for arriving at work on time. 

But the funny thing is, these young adults aren’t any happier and they don’t feel any better about themselves than previous generations, despite the fact that they’ve been given every opportunity and had to work for little.  That really isn’t too surprising.  We gain true self esteem partly by feeling as though we can handle what comes our way, that we’re strong enough to overcome adversity, because we have past experience that shows us that we can take care of ourselves.  How can our children do that, though, if they’ve been shielded from pain or even from having to do less than pleasant tasks (such as take out the garbage)? 

When I ask parents what they hope for their children as adults, they generally say that they hope they’ll be responsible, independent adults (among other things).  Yet, as Ms. Gordon rightly points out in her article, “[Today's young adults] may have mastered martial arts and piano, but they can’t find the circuit breaker panel or figure out whether the two-week-old chicken in their fridge has gone bad.”  We aren’t doing our job properly if we aren’t teaching our children the self-sufficiency to take care of themselves, and allowing the opportunities for them to develop a track-record of overcoming challenges, without us always bailing them out.  Will your older children love the idea of doing chores?  Honestly, probably not.  But like brushing their teeth, eating their veggies, and getting a good night’s sleep, getting your kids to pitch in around the house is an investment now that pays back dividends for them later.