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Some good ideas in here for parents to consider. But take it with a grain of salt. Examples from other cultures where several children are the norm and parents

Some good ideas in here for parents to consider. But take it with a grain of salt. Examples from other cultures where several children are the norm and parents spend more time in the home are ultimately not particularly helpful. In the end, every child is different, every parent is different, every household is different. No approach works for everyone. My own 17 year old daughter, an only child, has always resisted most household chores in a stubborn passive aggressive manner in the same way I did as a child, but is also nearly entirely unmotivated by monetary rewards, very different from the teenage me. Also unlike me, she is entirely self-disciplined about schoolwork, and learned to do her own laundry years ago (I didn’t until I was forced to by going to college far from home). So my own experience as a child is no help, and neither are articles like this one. And yet I suspect she’s turning out to be quite okay in the end.

electric_muse 8y ago
I would second this: each family is different. There are many ways to raise disciplined, motivated kids, and chores and allowances are certainly not necessary. I grew up with strong internal motivation because my parents helped me to see at an early age how hard work of others made them successful. That big mansion in a nearby neighborhood? The result of someone getting an education and working hard. (The adult perspective is that it’s not quite as simple, but it’s close enough.) So I developed a love of learning at an early age, not because of extrinsic rewards, but because it felt good to invest in myself. And it still does. To my mom, chores took away from study time or (rare) play time, so I was never expected to help. But I did small things when asked to help. My grandmother was aghast that my mom did my laundry until I moved out, and it was pretty easy to learn when I had to. My parents just didn’t think time doing laundry was more important than time learning calculus or playing on the computer. All that unstructured computer time developed my love for technology, and now I own a software company. They also took my young hopes and dreams seriously, rather than dismissing them since I was a kid. When at 3 years old I said I wanted a specific type of sports car, my mom opened up a savings account in my name, and we asked family never to gift me toys: only deposits into the account. By the time I was old enough to drive, I had a down payment ready to go. I learned the value of delaying instant gratification for a longer term goal. The most important way to raise healthy, motivated kids, in my mind, is to treat them as young adults and help them become intrinsically motivated.
jsnk 8y ago
Thanks for sharing your experience. If you had to pick a couple of things that helped your daughter to become autonomous and responsible individual, what would you point to?

electric_muse 8y ago

I would second this: each family is different. There are many ways to raise disciplined, motivated kids, and chores and allowances are certainly not necessary. I grew up with strong internal motivation because my parents helped me to see at an early age how hard work of others made them successful. That big mansion in a nearby neighborhood? The result of someone getting an education and working hard. (The adult perspective is that it’s not quite as simple, but it’s close enough.) So I developed a love of learning at an early age, not because of extrinsic rewards, but because it felt good to invest in myself. And it still does. To my mom, chores took away from study time or (rare) play time, so I was never expected to help. But I did small things when asked to help. My grandmother was aghast that my mom did my laundry until I moved out, and it was pretty easy to learn when I had to. My parents just didn’t think time doing laundry was more important than time learning calculus or playing on the computer. All that unstructured computer time developed my love for technology, and now I own a software company. They also took my young hopes and dreams seriously, rather than dismissing them since I was a kid. When at 3 years old I said I wanted a specific type of sports car, my mom opened up a savings account in my name, and we asked family never to gift me toys: only deposits into the account. By the time I was old enough to drive, I had a down payment ready to go. I learned the value of delaying instant gratification for a longer term goal. The most important way to raise healthy, motivated kids, in my mind, is to treat them as young adults and help them become intrinsically motivated.

jsnk 8y ago

Thanks for sharing your experience. If you had to pick a couple of things that helped your daughter to become autonomous and responsible individual, what would you point to?