Teaching Lifeskills and Cultivating Work Ethic in Children

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and wishing you all a blessed New Year! We had a fun 2 months, with 6 birthdays and our usual Christmas traditions(you can read about our Christmas traditions here); except this year with the COVID, we didn’t have our prayer gatherings. But my daughter was at her busiest, as she wanted to make all the birthday cakes for all her siblings along with her own ‘Sweet 16’ birthday cake, in the middle of exams and assignments and finals she had with her community college classes. And not to mention our traditional cookie baking season. I did however cheat this year by not making fruit cake as we didn’t have any gatherings; but we did make cookies to distribute to families. It was an even sweeter experience this year as it had been such a long time we got to see many of them, since the pandemic! I have posted some pictures of our baked goodies in the new ‘photo gallery’. 🙂

This post, I was hoping to write some thoughts and share our experiences about  developing work ethic and teaching important life-skills in children.

Work ethic is a determination to work hard, by putting in your best effort and finding work to be valuable.   It is very important to instill a good work ethic in children, as it greatly determines how you succeed as an adult, and also builds character.  As I was listening to a podcast by Fr Mike Schmitz, man was created for work, leisure and love. God values work. He wants us to put in our best efforts and be good stewards of our time and energy. Sadly in today’s ‘passive screen time culture’, work ethic seems to be going down the drain. Unless we diligently fight the battle, our children can very easily end up being lazy souls only interested in spending time passively.

Similarly, learning life-skills is very important for independent living. Being able to cook your own meals, laundry, cleaning, organization skills, etc are very important to have. Not only is it necessary for survival, but this also boosts their self-confidence as well as opens up ways to use their energy in positive and productive ways. Plus it will definitely help them in raising their own family in the future.

We give a lot of importance to try to develop a strong work ethic in our family.  Despite that, some of our children will very easily spend the time idly if given the opportunity, whereas few of them are very good stewards of their time and spend it very wisely.

Let’s look at some ways how we can develop work ethic, and teach important life skills. 

1) Giving children chores early on; according to their capability, interest and maturity.  I am a huge advocate of this! (One of our friends commented recently that whenever she asks her son to do something, he asks whether I read about that from my blog, haha! I hope I am not making any child enemies through my blog 😂 ) Sometimes parents have a tendency to put heavy emphasis on school, that they avoid giving work to children so as not to ‘burden’ them. But that should not be the case. All children should be given chores thus allowing them to help out, and feel like they are part of the family. People in general value more of what they have to work for, than something given to them freely. It’s the same with chores. Allowing kids to just be in their own world  without helping in the house, will only set them up to be self-centered.  Even just few decades ago, in India, our parents and grandparents had to work hard in the house, walk few miles to school, and study hard under the light of candles.  Whereas today, kids lack nothing, and to make it worse, even have the whole world under their fingertips. In families where kids are allowed to use cellphones and other devices freely, what parents may not realize is that they might not be making the most proper use of their time even though we are thinking they are  ‘studying hard’.

Another truth that most parents don’t realize is that almost all kids really love to help and be involved, especially when they are young.  So give them responsibilities as soon as they start showing interest, even as simple as picking up toys! If we wait until they ‘mature’ as it will be easier to do it ourself, we are missing out on a great opportunity, and their interest will gradually dwindle to the point that they won’t be as motivated to do much later. It is also important to give graduated responsibility as they become more skilled and mature.

Also give them an opportunity to earn wages for projects/ chores that require more time or expertise.This will give them an opportunity to learn new skills and try their best.

We train our children to do chores early on, sometimes as early as 2 years of age,  most of the time because they show interest . They have daily chores which they do without pay as we we require them to do as being part of the family,   and weekly chores for which we give paid allowance. In our family, kids are the ones doing most of the regular daily cleanup. With a large family, there will obviously be more mess and more work; but it definitely compensates by more number of hands to help! Their daily chores include brooming, laundry, dishwasher unloading, table wiping after meals, picking up and putting back toys, putting compost from kitchen into the compost bin, etc.  After dividing the chores between all the kids and learning the technique, it barely takes more than 10-15 minutes a day to do their daily chores. Their weekly chores include mopping, vacuuming, ironing, taking out trash, etc and occasional other jobs including mowing the lawn and garden responsibilities. These take more time and effort and we give an allowance.

As they are older, we allow them to do household projects ( with paid allowance). This enables critical thinking skills, that cannot be developed by just reading about something, but only through real hands-on work.  Homeschooling does give us an advantage with being able to do this.  Some examples of household projects which we have done in the past include laminating floors, painting rooms, replacing toilets, assembling furniture, installing major appliances, upholstering chairs and stools, remodeling patio swing sets. etc. With the experience gained under my husband’s lead (which he himself figured out through YouTube videos), both our oldest know the ins and outs of painting and laminating and completely able to work on projects themselves. Two weeks ago, they completely painted their own rooms, including the edges. Few months ago, they laminated some rooms, including taking the measurements and figuring out, all on their own (except the actual sawing part). Our oldest daughter had remodeled our patio swing set by sewing a roof and replacing the seats with wood which she cut out. She also recently upholstered all the dining chairs without any extra help, including figuring out the measurements and cutting the pieces needed. We actually consulted her expertise to know how much material to buy for the upholstery.  She also sewed curtains for some of the rooms, and masks for all of us at the start of the pandemic. They are able to assemble furniture (including IKEA ones that don’t come with clear instructions), by just experience and critical thinking, in a fraction of the time that will take me to figure out, lol!

Often, we also involve the kids in the kitchen, for peeling, cutting and chopping vegetables, making chapatis, grating food using the food processor, and other roles. Based on their maturity level, we let them use the stove  and oven on their own. My daughter has been baking from scratch and using the oven by herself since 9 years old. She has been making whole meals since 11 years old, and discovered she has a talent and passion for cooking. She self educated herself with cooking classes online, and by trying different recipes from different blogs. She tries different cuisines different months. (I think I will secretly admit that she is a better cook than me, haha. I also actually consult with her on different herbs, that she’s more familiar with). Some of our younger kids also started using the stove on their own  at 9 years old, and they usually start out with a vegetable omelette. In fact our 3rd and 4rth sons like to play ‘chef’ and make customized egg omelettes for their younger siblings, and even serve it to them in a fancy way, inspired by the show ‘master chef junior’. 🧑‍🍳

2)One of the most important ways to instill a good work ethic is to be a role model ourselves. One of the most effective ways is to model hard work ourselves, and including them alongside.

For this reason, we do not hire anyone to clean our house or even for most jobs that we can figure out how to do. (Now I’m hoping I am not making any parent enemies🙃 ) God has graced us with good health and willingness to work, and so we hope to continue this till whenever we are able to.

I should commend my husband for the very positive influence he is, as I am yet to see him sit still for a good 1 hour . Well I guess, I am also like that. God has blessed us both with an energetic spirit, that we both utilize to the utmost😀. On top of his job as a full time physician, and being very actively involved in ministry with upto 2-3 conference calls or meetings weekly, he maintains a vegetable garden, does the grocery shopping,  and also helps a lot with other household responsibilities.  He always tries to see if he can do most things himself, that need fixing, by self-educating through YouTube videos, and applying critical thinking.  

2)Praise them for a work well done. Most of the time, we tend to be on the critical side, pointing out what they didn’t do or what they did wrong, without acknowledging and praising them for a work well done (myself included😔). Even an honest attempt deserves mention. It is very important to keep encouraging our children, by giving an honest feedback of how they performed, in a gentle way. They need to know how they can do better, but also be applauded for their hard work. If it was obvious that they didn’t perform their best, it is important to communicate that.

3)Emphasize on doing whatever work they do, diligently. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men(Colossians 3:23). One of my favorite homeschool poems I have them memorize is M.A. Stodart’s poem “Work while you work”. It goes like this:

“Work while you work,

Play while you play,

This is the way

To be happy each day.

All that you do,

Do with your might:

Things done by halves are never done right.”

However consistently we try to instill work ethic, it is still very natural for kids (and adults) to fall out and be lazy if opportunity permits, and our kids are no exception. Continuing being consistent is key. If  I see that someone has become on the lazy side for doing something, I target that person for the next few weeks, to be the person I ask most things from;  until they learn to do things diligently and without being slothful. It usually works very well😁.

By developing a strong work ethic, kids build character, boost self confidence,  and become motivated to perform their best.  Let’s train our kids to have a solid work ethic and not idle away, as we need solid workers for God’s kingdom!

I have made a document with ideas for chores appropriate for different ages. It is not an exhaustive list, and ages can vary based on maturity;  but something to get started! You can download for free below!

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