Teaching Boys to Work (when no one else is)

[momma aimee]

Wash walls

Wash windows

Wash floors

Repaint

Repair

Do chores for others

 

Those are just a few that come to mind for you. Washing walls, floors and windows is hard work. Personally, I love washing windows. It relaxes me precisely because it requires me to expend a lot of energy.

 

 

 

add to that

baseboards.

cabinet doors and fronts.

clean out cabinets, wash shelves,

dust molding and door tops

dust mini blinds if you have them

 

etc

 

there is ALWAYS something that can be cleaned :0)

[Kelly1730]

Just read a great book about this, http://www.amazon.com/Cleaning-House-Twelve-Month-Experiment-Entitlement/dp/0307730670 and it will make you glad that you are making your kid take responsibility for 'life.'

 

I have this on my to-be-read list, I just put it in my Amazon basket:). Thanks for the recommendation!

[Heather in Neverland]

There is no landscaping.

 

We aren't allowed to wash our cars. And I don't really wash it if I'm being honest. A ride in the rain and it's washed.

 

Although I do have the oldest clean out the inside of the car.

 

There is no garage. The area around the house is so small there is almost nothing to do in it.

 

Maybe that's hard to imagine, but that's city living. The kids do take out recycling.

 

I feel your pain. We are exactly the same. Now add in a live-in maid/cook and there is nothing to clean either. My 14yo ds takes out the garbage, and helps carry in groceries once a week but other than that I can NOT figure out chores for him to do. There is literally NOTHING left.

 

I guess that is city living for you.

 

Last year we started making him do volunteer work (that sounds funny!). He volunteers by reading to kids at a local orphanage on Monday nights and he is a group leader for little kids at AWANA on Saturday mornings and those activities are helping to build a sense of responsibility in him. But they are not traditional "manly" activities.

 

My dh can do all that manly stuff and he would love to teach our ds but there is no place to work on a car or work on wood or have a garden or any of that stuff. And this isn't me whining about it, it is me a little frustrated about it.

 

 

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Edited June 25, 2012 by Heather in NC

[momma aimee]

Well see I don't do any of those things regularly. I do a quick steam mop in the kitchen. That takes about 5 minutes because the room is so small. All the rooms in the house are very small. I do a deep clean about 2 x per year. We painted every surface in this house 2 years ago. The rest of the surfaces need an occasional quick dusting or vacuum. That's it.

 

I really have very few household tasks to do (which I is why I find myself wasting so much time here....LOL).

 

I think at this point my boys do plenty. I'm not worried about now so much. I'm more worried about when they get older because there is so little to do around the house. I'm hoping they can find jobs of some sort.

 

no point you can't start :D

[Allearia]

I feel like we live on different planets. :001_huh:

 

I don't mean to insult with that comment. Those things just aren't a reality around here. We don't chop wood. We don't have much of a yard. Etc...etc...

 

I actually have a tough time coming up with stuff for my kids to do in terms of work. My oldest is only 10. I do have him help me out around the house. We also have him help us with home maintenance, but even that is pretty minimal.

 

I don't know how to create this sort of work hard mentality (which I agree is important) within the reality of our situation. KWIM? Hopefully I'm not sounding like a nutcase here. :tongue_smilie:

 

 

This is sort of where I am, and I really want things to be different. I never had chores as a kid and I so, so wish I had. We have a teeny yard, but ds 7 has expressed a lot of interest in growing vegetables and plants, so I am thinking of gradually training them and even having some slightly higher maintenance plants to care for. They have been working with our neighbor trimming our backyard trees once a week and actually really enjoy it. If we grow food it will have to be in containers on our deck as we have little yard space with enough sun. We are also doing some work on the house, and they did help with repairing concrete and tiling a bit, painting. It still was a very small amount, but I am hoping to find more things like this I can train them in so as teens they are doing real useful work.

 

Now, most of this is theoretical :tongue_smilie: so don't think this is advice, more brainstorming, what I have been thinking about.