How to get your child to help out?

Set the Table!!! How can you get your child to help out around the house?

Set the table, tidy your room, take your bath, empty the dishwasher, get dressed… these are all within the realm of his possibilities, but your little monster is resisting!

Here is the advice of Claude Berthon, child psychologist, to encourage them to get involved.

Put it into practice starting today: more independence for them and more time for you. What do you mean ‘the poor dears’?

COORGANIZ: Why do children (mine in any case) never want to set the table?

CLAUDE: “Young children are often focused on immediate satisfaction of their personal desires and are naturally disinclined to understand the importance of taking part in family chores because they generally mean putting off their own pleasure and they demand greater effort.

Encouraging them, despite their resistance, constitutes a powerful means of educating them about freedom. This will help them to grow and prepare them for their life as an adult.”

COORGANIZ: How can I make them listen?

CLAUDE:  “To get them on board, the way in which you ask for their help becomes very important.

Using a direct order, such as “Tidy your room” or “Take your shower” stands little chance of being heard because your child will prefer to continue playing, reading or watching television. So, how can you get children involved in household chores? Or in a general way, how can you get your children to listen to you?

First of all, you must announce the objective behind the request, so that your child will understand the reasoning behind it and the meaning of the help he is about to offer: “So that we can eat quickly and have a nice quiet evening…”

Then, “Could you, please…” addressed to your child personally, calling upon his or her individual freedom, “… set the table?” or “… finish your work?” or “… take your bath?” ”

COORGANIZ: And if that doesn’t work, what do I do?

CLAUDE: “If despite this, your child still refuses and continues to do whatever she pleases at that particular time, now is a good moment to warn her calmly and without anger that:

“Okay, I understand that you would prefer to do what you like, like a little child, but the next time that you ask me to do something that big children do (go to bed late on Saturday evening/ sleep at a friend’s house/ go to McDonald’s…etc.), I won’t be able to agree, because you have chosen to stay little”.

This response is very different to the threat of punishment that generally leads nowhere and tends to lock a child into her refusal, leading to an empty tug-of-war that leaves everyone drained.

It underlines the necessary coherence between your child’s choice of behaviour and the logical consequences.”

COORGANIZ: It worked! What do I do to make it last?

CLAUDE: “When a child responds favourably to a request for help, it is of course vital to thank him for what he has done and congratulate him warmly, perhaps underlining the benefits of his help for everyone in front of the rest of the family. This will only make him feel prouder, gratified for his effort, and willing to do it again.

Children often appreciate visual aids that allow them to have a better sense of time (such as a roster, calendar or family diary), and will take pleasure in creating or checking a table that lists important events and each person’s tasks to be accomplished throughout the week.

The entertaining and ‘contractual’ aspect of this aid can be a powerful lever for instilling good involvement habits for all the children in the family. Sometimes it can be more complicated to establish when the older children are at home less often…”

Thank you Claude for your inviting, but firm way to get our little monsters to help at home!

Let’s go over how to get your children to take part in household chores:

•    No orders!
•    Use “Could you…” and give meaning to the task (why do I have to do it?)
•    In case of refusal, we put the child’s decision in the perspective of remaining little.
•    We say thank you, and we organise the follow-up…

And if you are wondering what is the right age to start asking your child to help, here is some great practical advice from Claude Berthon for Coorganiz about which chore at what age.