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Education Should children help in the household?
Carrying out garbage, hanging up laundry, mowing the lawn: children can easily help. How much the children should help at home and when the support is dangerous or even forbidden.
As long as children live at home, they have to help the parents in the household. There is even a law for that. Section 1619 of the Civil Code lays down the rules and restrictions. School takes precedence and children are not allowed to go shopping for booze or cigarettes even if their parents consider it to be help in the household. But if we talk about realistic wishes of the parents such as cleaning up, helping with cooking or taking out garbage, the more important question than the law is whether children want to help and whether the parents want that at all. After all, not all children are the same and not every father or mother has the same upbringing style.
Knives, forks, scissors, light – for children or not?
The blogger and mother of three children Patricia Cammarata (she blogs on dasnuf.de ) wrote a much discussed article on this topic with the headline “Knife, fork, scissors, light – are for small children”. Her offspring let her do everything in the household that they want. This sometimes means that it takes much longer for the laundry to be hung up or vacuumed – or that it has to start all over again. Why is she doing this to herself? Isn’t that time-consuming and stressful? “Yes”, confirms Patricia, “it costs me nerves, but independence is very important to me and I believe that this approach gives the children self-confidence”.
More children in the household help than you think
Do children and adolescents have any desire at all for household activities? In fact, many people take it for granted to help their parents. This was the result of a survey conducted by the magazine “Eltern family”, for which around 1,800 children and young people between the ages of 9 and 19 were interviewed. According to the survey, 21 percent of children regularly take out garbage, 20 percent clean, and 18 percent help with cooking or baking. 15 percent are responsible for gardening work such as mowing the lawn. After all, 14 percent of the children take care of their own laundry, wash, iron and put it back in their cupboards.
These are the arguments of the opponents
Some parents do not encourage their children to cooperate. Often cited reasons are: 1. no interest in making plans and punishing offenders, 2. time saving if you do something yourself, 3. lack of time for today’s children who are involved in school and extracurricular activities, 4. fear of children injuring themselves in the kitchen or garden.
Topic Security
Does it make sense for preschool children to press knives into their hands and have them cut vegetables? Of course, it depends on the child and what you think your son or daughter is capable of. Patricia Cammarata has great confidence: “When the children want to cut, they get sharp knives. This also means that they have all cut themselves. But we have plasters and it didn’t happen very often and it happens much less often afterwards.”
Caution is advised here!
Of course, there are also areas in which security takes precedence. You don’t let a toddler handle boiling water or hot oil and you don’t press a hot iron into his hand. Scaldings and burns are too serious to take a risk here and preschool children cannot yet assess the risks properly. This changes with age, and parents can give them more demanding tasks.
Doing it yourself means learning
For example, if a schoolchild doesn’t like the dinner offered, why shouldn’t he have the opportunity to prepare his own alternative? Anyone who greases a loaf of bread, washes and turns on salad or cooks fried potatoes, peels, roasts, knows how much work this does and considers in the future whether it is worth taking care of.
We are looking forward to your comments
What are your experiences with household help? Which tasks do your children like to do and which ones do you forbid?