Housework is not exactly a light burden to take on, especially with children at home. To raising the little ones we must add cleaning the rooms, doing the laundry, washing the dishes, shopping, cooking and a long etcetera of chores that make them exhausting.
In this sense, it is essential to involve children in household obligations. In this way, they not only help reduce the burden on mothers and fathers, but also instill responsibility and effort in them. However, we usually resort to asking our children to help us carry out certain tasks. Although this request seems harmless, the term “help” carries certain implications that give little ones the wrong idea.
Instead, mother of three, therapist and parenting coach Sam Kelly, who has 72,000 followers on Instagram (under the alias @samkelly_world), has spread the word on this social network about the approach she uses to get her children be an effective and active part of the housework.
Sam Kelly begins by explaining that she does not ask her children to “help” her at home, because with this concept we give children the idea that managing and taking care of the home is the mother's responsibility, while others can limit themselves to supporting her. in that role. Instead, we should focus on the fact that “the job of taking care of a home is 100% a team effort,” says Kelly.
How to approach it, then? This mother's proposal is to replace the word “help” with “work.” For example, asking your children if they can “work with you to unload the dishwasher.”
The therapist insists that classifying it as work does not imply a negative connotation, but rather it is positive for children to see work as something neutral and with which they can become familiar. In this way, your tolerance and comfort with work increases, also improving your resilience.
In conclusion, Sam Kelly asks to call a spade a spade: “They're not helping you, they're working with you.” The publication in carousel format where she has shared this maxim that she applies in raising her children is already close to 80,000 'likes' and, incidentally, the comments section has served as a forum in which many mothers share their experiences regarding this issue. .
