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I think this boils down to one single rule: Kids are wired to want to learn things. Learning is fun, because play is semi-structured learning. You can see thi

by pdpi 5y ago

I think this boils down to one single rule: Kids are wired to want to learn things. Learning is fun, because play is semi-structured learning. You can see this in other species too, where pups and kittens play at hunting and fighting, and it comes with a number of important corollaries. First one is that a major part of this learning experience is emotional, not just technical. You’re not just teaching your child to wash the dishes, you’re also teaching them how to feel about washing the dishes. If you act like chores are something to be avoided, your kids will learn that from you. If you resent your kids not helping, they’ll learn that too. Second is that kids never stop learning, so you never stop teaching. If you act like you resent chores all day, then try to act enthusiastic about doing them as a way to get your kid to help, they’ll catch on to the deception really quickly. Third, your kids are not always learning the lessons you want to teach them. If you want to punish them for misbehaving, don’t do that by giving them chores. Chores = punishment teaches the exact opposite of what you want them to learn!

burntoutfire 5y ago
> First one is that a major part of this learning experience is emotional, not just technical. You’re not just teaching your child to wash the dishes, you’re also teaching them how to feel about washing the dishes. If you act like chores are something to be avoided, your kids will learn that from you. If you resent your kids not helping, they’ll learn that too. That really works! When my friend was a kid, his older sister pretended that vacuuming the apartment (something she was made to do by the parents) was the coolest thing in the world. As a result, my friend was dying to take the vacuum from her and do the job himself.
- dotancohen 5y ago
  When my daughters were young I introduced sardines as desert. When we would go out to the swimming pool and friends' parents would suggest ice cream, by daughters would ask if I brought sardines. Think about how much of our preferences, be them food, politics, or religion, are learned. We absolutely could have a peaceful, productive society, if we just started teaching it properly at a young age. I do believe that the popular media has a large part to play in that.
  - yakubin 5y ago
    When I was a child, I was allergic to a whole bunch of things, one of them being sweets. But I wasn't allergic to apples, carrots and blackberries, so those were given to me in place of sweets. Now in adulthood blackberries are my favourite snack, followed by apples, and I'm not a huge fan of sweets.
    - voakbasda 5y ago
      Were you really allergic to sweets or did your parents tell you that to control your behavior? in the context of this thread, that sounds like what some parents would do, and your last sentence implies that you can actually eat them.
      - yakubin 5y ago
        I was really allergic. I was born with a sick gastrointestinal tract. After 7 years it was cured with a short relapse some years later.
    - supertofu 5y ago
      What ingredient in sweets were you allergic to?
      - yakubin 5y ago
        Depended on the sweets. There was a whole bunch of allergies I don't even remember now. My whole gastrointestinal tract was perpetually sick (since birth), I would visit the hospital basically everyday. Most notably, I couldn't eat chocolate, because I was lactose- and gluten-intolerant. So I couldn't eat any sweets which had any chocolate in them, no sweets which were pastry-based etc. Tangentially, in those times avoiding gluten wasn't as fashionable as it is today, and so there wasn't really any gluten-free bread to buy. My mum would bake bread herself for that purpose, because otherwise I wouldn't even be able to eat bread.
        tasuki 5y ago
- yosamino 5y ago
  > That suppressed smile worries me. https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1995/05/06/ https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1995/05/06/
- andi999 5y ago
  The Tom Sawyer method?
jimmygrapes 5y ago
When it comes to dishes, there is one thing I have found that seems to work universally for children and adults alike: give them ownership. They have their own set of dishes, and it is made clear that it is their responsibility to clean them and keep them, and to not have them be in the way of others trying to do the same. If your dish is not clean, you must clean it before it can be used. Things get hairier when it comes to pots and pans and other such common use items, but I have found that the second part of the above helps here too: make sure you're not blocking others from keeping their stuff clean. This leads to washing as you go, to caring for your stuff, and to a sense of pride in your work. inb4 commies /s
- kqr 5y ago
  Here comes the commie: This is something I'm struggling with personally. My firstborn is just about the age where he is starting to exhibit territoriality around things he is currently using. To what extent do I want to reinforce the idea of private property in the home? Philosophically, I'm definitely against it. Practically, it seems like it has certain benefits and drawbacks and I don't know which are stronger. I have no idea! Opinions, please.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    Things he is using, you definitely want to encourage the territoriality. Otherwise there is a real risk of bullying when he goes to kindergarten and preschool. But things that he is not currently using should definitely be shared. I'm guessing that your son is about two years old (based on my three children's behaviour at that age), so he should already be in daily contact with non-family children but not yet experienced bullying. So for that I'll mention how i think about it: bullying is how humans determine who is the Alpha Male. It is natural and expected. So don't try to shield your son from it, rather, prepare him for it.
    - kqr 5y ago
      Correct at all counts. He's two, and I certainly notice that he (and his peers) are starting to experiment with violence as a tool for managing relationships with people and things. My instinct was also the "take turns using things, but don't assert property rights of things that aren't used". Where I'm hesitant is some things have incredible emotional value to one person but not to others -- is it not nice to ask others to respect that? Something else that troubles me is that I certainly don't act that way -- there are many things my wife and I brought into our relationship that we still consider private property, mainly for convenience ("her" drawer is organised according to her needs, for example). Another thing is purely linguistic habit. While my wife is very good at asking e.g. "can I taste the ice cream" I'm used to phrasing the question as "can I taste your ice cream".
hosh 5y ago
It’s more than just how one feels about chores and involves the world view and paradigm. Indigenous families typically have a world view in which a member of the community voluntarily contributes towards something to the greater community. Some tasks are so important that someone somewhere has to do it, and it is less about individual responsibility. And this extends not just to “chores”, but the care of people and care of the land. So this isn’t a “chore”, something someone is forced to do, perhaps even a punishment. If a modern family tries to implement this without dropping the individualist frame, there is a tension in trying to get the child to do something that you yourself don’t really want to do, yet must do as an “adult”. It’s why for my kids, household chores are never done in order to get money. It’s a bit too late to instill this for my teenage step-daughter, but it is something we’re implementing for our 15-month old son. Carol Sanford has written a book called Regenerative Life that describes the kind of world view and paradigm for this, and it is informed from her being raised by her Mohawk grandfather. When she adapted this to her children, she asked her two children what they wanted to contribute. Her 9 year old daughter wanted to pay the bills, and her even younger son wanted to cook dinner. She didn’t throw them into the deep end, and instead acted as a resource and helped developed their individual capacity to contribute in that way. When they were older, the daughter joined an athletic program and wanted to go on a special diet. She collaborated with her brother about her needs. He gathered the ingredients and cooked it for her, and she worked out the budget for it. This kind of stuff can go beyond just doing chores.
- AbrahamParangi 5y ago
  The point about communitarianism in many societies is overall reasonable but generalizing about "indigenous people" is not sound. "Indigenous" is a wastebasket taxon, defining people by what they are not rather than what they are.
- jollybean 5y ago
  "Indigenous families typically have a world view in which a member of the community voluntarily contributes towards something to the greater community. " I don't see how this is different than anywhere else. That's actually 'individual responsibility' rephrased: it's someone's 'individual responsibility to do their part'. The word 'duty' has historically always been party of our lexicon, although fallen off quite rapidly in the last couple generations. The issue is not one of 'responsibility' because if people undertook that the world would be fine, it's all these thing v. 'personal expression or fulfillment' which is now the thing we teach people. Which is fine of course, but it doesn't gel very well with the day to day and the fact that the bulk of it is just 'grind' and often not obviously self oriented. I could 'write a book' that was 'informed from my WW2 era grandparents' who were born on farms without electricity, about what 'community' means. That would be the experience most Westerners would have.

by pdpi 5y ago

burntoutfire 5y ago

> First one is that a major part of this learning experience is emotional, not just technical. You’re not just teaching your child to wash the dishes, you’re also teaching them how to feel about washing the dishes. If you act like chores are something to be avoided, your kids will learn that from you. If you resent your kids not helping, they’ll learn that too. That really works! When my friend was a kid, his older sister pretended that vacuuming the apartment (something she was made to do by the parents) was the coolest thing in the world. As a result, my friend was dying to take the vacuum from her and do the job himself.

dotancohen 5y ago
When my daughters were young I introduced sardines as desert. When we would go out to the swimming pool and friends' parents would suggest ice cream, by daughters would ask if I brought sardines. Think about how much of our preferences, be them food, politics, or religion, are learned. We absolutely could have a peaceful, productive society, if we just started teaching it properly at a young age. I do believe that the popular media has a large part to play in that.
- yakubin 5y ago
  When I was a child, I was allergic to a whole bunch of things, one of them being sweets. But I wasn't allergic to apples, carrots and blackberries, so those were given to me in place of sweets. Now in adulthood blackberries are my favourite snack, followed by apples, and I'm not a huge fan of sweets.
  - voakbasda 5y ago
    Were you really allergic to sweets or did your parents tell you that to control your behavior? in the context of this thread, that sounds like what some parents would do, and your last sentence implies that you can actually eat them.
    - yakubin 5y ago
      I was really allergic. I was born with a sick gastrointestinal tract. After 7 years it was cured with a short relapse some years later.
  - supertofu 5y ago
    What ingredient in sweets were you allergic to?
    - yakubin 5y ago
      Depended on the sweets. There was a whole bunch of allergies I don't even remember now. My whole gastrointestinal tract was perpetually sick (since birth), I would visit the hospital basically everyday. Most notably, I couldn't eat chocolate, because I was lactose- and gluten-intolerant. So I couldn't eat any sweets which had any chocolate in them, no sweets which were pastry-based etc. Tangentially, in those times avoiding gluten wasn't as fashionable as it is today, and so there wasn't really any gluten-free bread to buy. My mum would bake bread herself for that purpose, because otherwise I wouldn't even be able to eat bread.
      - tasuki 5y ago
yosamino 5y ago
> That suppressed smile worries me. https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1995/05/06/ https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1995/05/06/
andi999 5y ago
The Tom Sawyer method?

jimmygrapes 5y ago

When it comes to dishes, there is one thing I have found that seems to work universally for children and adults alike: give them ownership. They have their own set of dishes, and it is made clear that it is their responsibility to clean them and keep them, and to not have them be in the way of others trying to do the same. If your dish is not clean, you must clean it before it can be used. Things get hairier when it comes to pots and pans and other such common use items, but I have found that the second part of the above helps here too: make sure you're not blocking others from keeping their stuff clean. This leads to washing as you go, to caring for your stuff, and to a sense of pride in your work. inb4 commies /s

kqr 5y ago
Here comes the commie: This is something I'm struggling with personally. My firstborn is just about the age where he is starting to exhibit territoriality around things he is currently using. To what extent do I want to reinforce the idea of private property in the home? Philosophically, I'm definitely against it. Practically, it seems like it has certain benefits and drawbacks and I don't know which are stronger. I have no idea! Opinions, please.
- dotancohen 5y ago
  Things he is using, you definitely want to encourage the territoriality. Otherwise there is a real risk of bullying when he goes to kindergarten and preschool. But things that he is not currently using should definitely be shared. I'm guessing that your son is about two years old (based on my three children's behaviour at that age), so he should already be in daily contact with non-family children but not yet experienced bullying. So for that I'll mention how i think about it: bullying is how humans determine who is the Alpha Male. It is natural and expected. So don't try to shield your son from it, rather, prepare him for it.
  - kqr 5y ago
    Correct at all counts. He's two, and I certainly notice that he (and his peers) are starting to experiment with violence as a tool for managing relationships with people and things. My instinct was also the "take turns using things, but don't assert property rights of things that aren't used". Where I'm hesitant is some things have incredible emotional value to one person but not to others -- is it not nice to ask others to respect that? Something else that troubles me is that I certainly don't act that way -- there are many things my wife and I brought into our relationship that we still consider private property, mainly for convenience ("her" drawer is organised according to her needs, for example). Another thing is purely linguistic habit. While my wife is very good at asking e.g. "can I taste the ice cream" I'm used to phrasing the question as "can I taste your ice cream".

hosh 5y ago

It’s more than just how one feels about chores and involves the world view and paradigm. Indigenous families typically have a world view in which a member of the community voluntarily contributes towards something to the greater community. Some tasks are so important that someone somewhere has to do it, and it is less about individual responsibility. And this extends not just to “chores”, but the care of people and care of the land. So this isn’t a “chore”, something someone is forced to do, perhaps even a punishment. If a modern family tries to implement this without dropping the individualist frame, there is a tension in trying to get the child to do something that you yourself don’t really want to do, yet must do as an “adult”. It’s why for my kids, household chores are never done in order to get money. It’s a bit too late to instill this for my teenage step-daughter, but it is something we’re implementing for our 15-month old son. Carol Sanford has written a book called Regenerative Life that describes the kind of world view and paradigm for this, and it is informed from her being raised by her Mohawk grandfather. When she adapted this to her children, she asked her two children what they wanted to contribute. Her 9 year old daughter wanted to pay the bills, and her even younger son wanted to cook dinner. She didn’t throw them into the deep end, and instead acted as a resource and helped developed their individual capacity to contribute in that way. When they were older, the daughter joined an athletic program and wanted to go on a special diet. She collaborated with her brother about her needs. He gathered the ingredients and cooked it for her, and she worked out the budget for it. This kind of stuff can go beyond just doing chores.

AbrahamParangi 5y ago
The point about communitarianism in many societies is overall reasonable but generalizing about "indigenous people" is not sound. "Indigenous" is a wastebasket taxon, defining people by what they are not rather than what they are.
jollybean 5y ago
"Indigenous families typically have a world view in which a member of the community voluntarily contributes towards something to the greater community. " I don't see how this is different than anywhere else. That's actually 'individual responsibility' rephrased: it's someone's 'individual responsibility to do their part'. The word 'duty' has historically always been party of our lexicon, although fallen off quite rapidly in the last couple generations. The issue is not one of 'responsibility' because if people undertook that the world would be fine, it's all these thing v. 'personal expression or fulfillment' which is now the thing we teach people. Which is fine of course, but it doesn't gel very well with the day to day and the fact that the bulk of it is just 'grind' and often not obviously self oriented. I could 'write a book' that was 'informed from my WW2 era grandparents' who were born on farms without electricity, about what 'community' means. That would be the experience most Westerners would have.