Tag Archives: toys

Engaging Kids in Housework

Kids don’t want to do chores. That’s a fact. Expect this. That doesn’t mean let them off the hook. It is essential for our kids to be contributing members of the family to develop an investment in and consideration for their family members. A family is a team. When you are on a team, every team player is important to the working of the whole.

But when you yell, bribe, or threaten them to do their chores, the underlying assumption is that they should want to but they don’t. This unrealistic expectation means you will yell when that expectation is not met. But if you understand that kids don’t want to do chores, you will be more effective at ensuring they get to work.

Remember when your toddlers and preschoolers begged to run the vacuum, fold laundry, wash windows, and sweep the floor? It would have taken the entire morning and you’d have to do it over anyway. You didn’t have the time or patience so you got them out of the way to just get it done. Well, you

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Too many toys?
kids toys

Watching the toys pouring in for my grandson has made me think about our grossly material world and how important it seems to parents that their children have everything the culture provides. Coinciding with this—granted I have not done a study on the connection—seems to be an epidemic of bored kids who want nothing more than to be interfacing with a screen of some kind.

I wonder if children have so much to play with from a very early age, they switch quickly and mindlessly from one toy to another, get bored easily and then demand more. What if a young child had two toys? I imagine that child would use those toys in many ways that the child with lots of toys would not. What happens to imagination when toys and games fill in all the details? Do you want your child thinking about ways she can dress her doll from found things around the house, perhaps learning to sew, or do you want the doll that comes with complete wardrobe and accessories? Can your child imagine what he

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