While all families are different, with different values, beliefs, cultures, with different past and present, there are things that are repeated in all (at least traditional families): chores.
Do you remember when your mother told you to sweep the patio, raise the table, make your bed, and do it in general, reluctantly? Do not hurry. According to many studies carried out by researchers, pediatricians, psychologists, among others, housework has an impact on the lives of people who may not have ever thought about it.
One of the investigations carried out during 75 years at Harvard studied different facets in children and what are some of the aspects that lead them to succeed in adulthood.
In this way, it was examined what kind of biological processes and psychosocial variables can predict the health and well-being of children later in their adult life. The researchers found that children who were assigned chores at certain ages were able to become more responsible and independent adults.
Overview
According to some other studies, children can start doing housework from 2 years onwards with different modalities and tasks, obviously.
Making a routine of domestic work for your children will enhance values and skills that are not easy to develop in people if they do not have a solid foundation, from the character that identifies a person, to how they behave with their environment.
You should not think that it is about giving your children a job because it is not. It is simply part of life and how we evolve from the bosom of our family, to the external world.
Developmental psychologist Richard Rende, co-author of Raising Can-Do Kids, doing housework is a very good strategy, in the medium and long term, to achieve academic or extracurricular results than any other task that children do.
The Process
Performing chores can be compared to playing a sport because of the benefits it brings to train children from an early age.
Just as in many sports disciplines each player, each component, each element has a form, its structure, a role within the predetermined parameters, each will know what he has to do,
For example, according to the football odds, the quarterback is responsible for generating an offensive attack; the defense will do the same by preventing the opposing team from scoring touchdowns. Thus, each player has a quality, a virtue that makes it unique to fulfill a certain function.
Children also learn to value their environment more by generating new feelings, sensations, and experiences, as well as making them feel that they are part of a team.
Benefits
Of the many benefits we can name, we will cite the following:
Self-esteem: Children learn to be responsible, attentive, learn new values, a new way of seeing the world. According to another study carried out for more than 20 years by a University of Minnesota, doing chores on a fundamental pillar and precursor of success in life depending on the age at which they began to perform these tasks.
Skills and abilities: By making them more independent and solvent by themselves, children learn skills and have diverse experiences, developmentally and physically.
Learn as a family: Spending more time with your family is not only part of life. Feelings are strengthened and you learn from each other.
Summarizing
Doing household chores, in addition to strengthening and tempering character, adapts the child to start new businesses with responsibility and sanity.
At the same time, it is good that we can give you some reward. The feeling of competition is always healthy if the rules are followed. As they do so, they can also learn other skills, whether financial – because they learn the flow movement internally – or, more successfully completed physical tasks.
Parents should always have some kind of authority to promote scientifically proven good practices. Take care of your children!