There is SO much to good parenting. I can't begin to talk about everything in a short post, and I'm the first to say I'm a sinner, not a perfect parent.
But I wanted to mention one little thing.
A few minutes ago, I stepped into our laundry room and noticed that our 6 year old daughter had moved stuff from the washer to the dryer, turned on the fan (which is necessary as we vent into the house during the winter, and we don't want the humid air trapped in a small space), and then went downstairs without turning the dryer on.
Now, a few years ago, I would have just turned on the dryer. Why call Miriam ALL the way upstairs to push a couple of little buttons?
But this time I didn't do that. I was going downstairs anyway to drop something off, so when I did I told her to go upstairs and turn on the dryer. And she did.
I'm thankful to my husband for his perspective on this issue of finishing jobs for the kids. I like to help people and I like serving my children, BUT it is vitally important that they learn to do a job well and thoroughly. Obviously, the "dryer job" is not done well if the dryer isn't turned on! The throwing clothes down the chute job isn't done well if our 5 year old daughter misses one basket of dirty clothes. The sweeping job isn't done well if a corner of the room is neglected.
We really don't do our children any favors if we give them they idea that they can do a half hearted job and someone else will finish things up for them. I'm afraid I have given my kids that idea on more than one occasion, but I'm trying to consistently call them to finish a job if they are careless or lazy.
Of course, sometimes a job is difficult and they need help. Sometimes life circumstances come up, and they need help.
But I'm not going to reward laziness or absentmindedness by doing my kids' jobs for them.
2 comments:
That is something I've been struggling with lately. Now that I'm really quite healthy, I find myself having the energy to serve my children...and occasionally I complete their jobs for them. Not good. Parenting is full of so many little challenges!
About books: Comic books can be fun, and we allow Asterix, Tintin, and Garfield occasionally. But they are an easy (and often violent) way out.
We start our kids on the old Bobbsey twins, Encylopedia Brown, Boxcar Children (the old versions; not the new ones or later books) Happy Hollisters, Little House on the Prairie, etc. Great for fluency and lots of fun with reasonable values.
The next level of difficulty at grade 5 is Nancy Drew, and then in grade 6 we allow Hardy Boys (all old versions), and the next year Henty's books.
Usually somewhere along the line, kids become readers and are able to pick up more challenging books like Little Women, Swiss Family Robinson, Swallows and Amazons, books by Piet Prins, etc.
There are so many good classics for children. Ambleside Online lists some of them.
To respond to your comment, being ‘lazy’ in reading can be appropriate sometimes, but if a more challenging book is exciting then few readers can put it down.
The trick is to find worthwhile books. I agree that a lot of ‘classics’ are garbage; a lot of them aren’t, but we need a guide to get through them safely. That’s one of the reasons we use Omnibus from Veritas Press. But there, too, you need to be cautious; some of the books they study are totally inappropriate for the age range, so we just avoid those.
My 17 yo son reads Daddy-approved sci fi as well as politics, finance, and economics. Miss 15 is into Dickens, Holmes, Baroness Orcsey, and Jane Austin. Both of them love Tolkein. Miss 12 loves anything I let her read, but has really enjoyed the books of Piet Prins (I reviewed some on my blog), Arthur Ransome, and Henty. Miss 10 has just finished our entire collection of Bobbsey Twins and Happy Hollisters, started Nancy Drew, and is now moving on to 'real' books, like those by Barbara Greenwood.
And when they're feeling lazy, they read picture books or comic books.
I hope this gives you some thoughts about how things have worked in our family.
By the way, the new versions and later books of well-known series are often full of negative elements.
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