A "FIVE-YEAR-PLAN"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 2, 4 January 1939, Page 14

A "FIVE-YEAR-PLAN"

DOMESTICATING A FAMILY

WORK THROUGH PLAY

"Hojv did you ever train your children to have such a sense of responsibility towards household tasks?" a friend of mine asked one evening when a chorus of gratitude from the four of them greeted her offer to help with the dishes, writes a mother in the "Christian Science Monitor." "It's our five-year plan," I told her and it was literally true. Five years ago I woke up to the fact that our four children, who then ranged from three to nine, were growing up without any sense of contributing . their part towards the family group. Their efforts were more in the way of value to the help in our home, and I hesitated to interfere with the household routine to train them. On the other hand, so their father and I decided, children only learn by doing, and the ability to do the routine things easily and well makes many of the major adjustments of life far easier. We would seek to teach them to do all of the tasks necessary to running a well-organised home from the everyday one of putting away their own belongings, to cooking, and scrubbing floors. But though these should be done well, they would be but the means for encouraging in each activity character development. Through constant repetition we hoped they would learn responsibility, order, thoroughness, neatness, accuracy, co-operation, and integrity. PARENTS LEARN AS WELL. We did not call it a five-year-plan. We might have been a bit discouraged had we realised it would take that long -before the results of our efforts were definitely recognised, but we feel that our efforts have achieved results and that our experience might encourage other parents. Incidentally, we know that the lessons •we both learned in patience, in restraint, in self-control, and the judicious use of praise made it a fiveyear plan for us as well as for the children. Working on the maid's days off was helpful, but did not give the steady, intensive training we felt the children needed. To achieve this' we decided upon heroic steps, and took it up with the children, talking over with them our reasons. The following summer we would take the money that would otherwise be paid to a maid, and woulddevote to a cause we loved. The children' would be paid a small but definite wage for doing preappointed It was a difficult summer. Looking back, I smile as I remember the\ children rehearsing how they cleaned the house, washed the dishes, scrubbed the floors, 'prepared the vegetables, and did the cooking. It seemed to leave nothing for their mother to do, but she never worked harder! Yet the children learned. CHILD'S RESPONSIBILITY. We adopted the attitude that once a task was assigned to a child all our responsibility ceased. If they did it well, or tried to do it well, they were paid; if it was left undone, it had its penalty. To their father was left the task of being judge, counsellor, and executioner of punishment. Sometimes the punishment seemed to me severe, as when a bicycle was locked up for a. week because it had not been put away after several weeks of warnings. But each punishment was administered in such a spirit of firmness, love, and counsel, that no matter how severe, it in no wise affected the deep feeling, of comradeship between the boys and their father. We feel that that summer of intensive work was of great value. Second to it were the succeeding summers when the children all went to camp. Camp taught the children much and taught us much. We adopted in our home much of the spirit of work through1 play which is such a helpful part of the camp programme. Room inspection instead of tent inspection vastly increased room tidiness, for instance. | 'It should be stated here that beyond the one summer of special arrangement, the children were not paid. They were taught to be helpful as their part in the co-operative enterprise of homemaking. BOYS TAKE TO COOKING. Cooking for the boys became a real hobby. Now Peter can attractively prepare and serve Sunday night supper. Not long ago, before two appreciative guests, he made for us waffles with a choice of maple syrup or cheese sauce, chocolate to drink, and, as a supreme triumph, chocolate eclairs for dessert. It has worked out, too, as we hoped it would. The lessons learned through household tasks have not been confined to them. Homework is taken as a matter of course, to be finished as quickly as possible. Never since the children have been in the grades where homework was given have I once had to mention to them the importance of doing it. In camp they have been chosen as honour campers; in school they play their part in self-govern; ment. Too, they have achieved a proficiency in doing housework which greatly relieves me whether we have a maid or not —and this was a result which even in my wildest imaginings, I never foresaw.