Time for Chores

If you have kids, it’s likely at some point you realized they look at the world differently. Many things adults see as chores, errands, and to-dos kids see as challenges, adventures, and just plain fun.

Dusting surely ranks high on the list of tedious chores for adults. But a feather duster might as well be a magic wand as far as a 6-year-old is concerned.

Going to the dry cleaners may not sound like an adventure to you, but have you ever taken a 7-year-old to a dry cleaner? The moving machinery and forest of clothing is anything but mundane to them. When we went, the dry cleaner let the 7-year-old press the button that makes all the clean clothes parade around the room on their hangers. You would have thought he was at an amusement park from the smile on his face.

You may think raking leaves, mowing grass, or trimming trees are “have tos” but the chorus of “can I do that” that I hear when I’m doing yardwork tells me kids see it differently. Especially when they’re under 10-years-old, these things are “get tos” not have tos.

I’ve been trying to approach chores and errands with that in mind. Instead of stopping at a store on the way home by myself, I’ll take some of the kids with me on the errand. It can be a learning experience for the kids too. I wouldn’t have learned to shop groceries looking at the price per ounce if I hadn’t gone grocery shopping with my dad every week as a kid. I also wouldn’t know and appreciate so many songs from the 60s and 70s either since I only listened to the Oldies radio station when doing errands with him.

Doing errands together is an opportunity for learning, and it turns out, for bonding too.

There’s a great sense of accomplishment and camaraderie upon finishing a yard work project where everyone pitched in. The boys and I recently had to move rocks and dig a trench for a downspout to drain in the backyard. Digging a hole and lugging rocks definitely shows up on an adults list of things that are a chore. But not to kids.

I had more volunteers to dig than we had shovels to dig with. It’s a little like the old-fashioned barn raising and the saying many hands make light work. But instead of focusing on the practical benefit of spreading the workload it’s about sharing the time and looking at the task as time spent well together instead of time lost doing a have to.

We parents often work hard to eliminate chores or errands in order to spend time with our kids, but maybe that time isn’t about what you spend it on so much as who you spend it with.