Teaching your children to work

My father in law, Evangelist Larry Brown, has often made the statement, "I would rather my daughter marry a cussing or smoking man than to have her marry a lazy man!" Please don't misunderstand this comment - we are certainly not advocates of profanity or tobacco, in ANY way, shape nor form! Yet I couldn't agree more with this comment!

I recently read an article on this topic that changed my life. It was written by a lady I'm honored to call one of 'my closest friends.' She is a very successful mother of ten children, all of whom are amazing young people who love The Lord with all their heart. They're some of the most charactered and hard working people I've ever met. Here are some of her thoughts that I would like to share with you. I hope they'll encourage and motivate you just as they did me.

What the Bible has to say about work:

“It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” Lamentations 3:27

“For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.” II Thessalonians 3:10

“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” I Corinthians 10:31

1. Teach your children when they are young. Any child capable of dumping a basket of toys is certainly able to pick them up again. Cheerful words and a parent’s helping hand will do much to make your training more effective. Buy a little broom and dustpan so your child can work beside you as you sweep the floor. Most children love water-let them slosh as they rinse the dishes. Setting the table and clearing the dishwasher are great chores to teach your 3 or 4 year old that they must work before they eat.

2. Be consistent in what you expect your children to do. At our house, most of the boys started feeding the calves when they were about 6 years old. Within months, I could see that this responsibility had a very positive effect. Having a chore that needs to be done twice a day at a specific time, rain or shine, cold or hot, whether we had guests or not, regardless of their desire to feed the calves by the appointed time, had a way of maturing them in all of life. This responsibility taught them that they could do a job in spite of their feelings. Be creative-assign a child to prepare breakfast or dinner everyday, have them do a quick bathroom cleanup every morning before breakfast, run a paper route, or buy chickens or calves to feed. Before we milked cows, we bought some calves and chickens for the sole purpose to provide work for our young children (6-7 yrs old). We never actually kept good records but I am quite sure we lost money on these “projects” but that didn’t matter. If need be, I would volunteer my children to mow an elderly person’s yard or remove the snow from their sidewalk for free just so they would have some work to do. You could also turn your garage into a small mechanic shop or woodworking shop. By all means, plant a garden! This is an excellent way to teach your children the rewards of hard work.

3. Teach them to work without pay. We have never given our children an allowance - this is simply the way we raised our 10 children. So everyday chores such as cooking, laundry, cleaning, garden work, feeding calves, etc. were always done without pay. We did, however; offer them additional work for a small or sometimes larger monetary reward. At our house this might be loading out hogs (not for the faint at heart!), doing the early morning milking (4:00 a.m.), trapping mice (what a nice relief for a mother who doesn’t enjoy living with mice or removing their dead bodies), painting a fence, doing an extraordinarily nasty cleaning job, digging thistles or dandelions, and more.

4. Reward work. While this may seem like a contradiction to the previous point, it isn’t. Actually, my children told me this is something that helped them learn to enjoy work. On a hot, summer day I might tell them that I will set up the sprinkler after they weed and mulch the potatoes. Or I will give them a list of garden chores to do on a Monday and Tuesday then take them swimming on Wednesday. We have also watched a movie while folding laundry or listened to a story on cd while making salsa or canning pears. Let them learn that there are rewards for a job well done.

5. If they complain about not liking a job, be sure they know that the job will be their responsibility until they can do it cheerfully on a daily/weekly basis. We have had different jobs given to our younger children like clearing the dishwasher, taking out a bucket of scraps to the compost pile, and setting the table. I have assured them that the chore will not be given to a younger sibling until they can consistently do it cheerfully. Many times I have seen a 6 year old begin to find joy in a simple job which was done day after day.

6. Promise them that there will be many times in life that they will have to do something they don’t like to do. Does anyone need further explanation on this?

7. Remind them, when necessary, of the verse “He who eats must work”. Be creative in how you apply this verse to real life situations. This truth will live with them and aid them throughout their entire life.

My desire is that your heart has been challenged and motivated by these seven points, just as I have been! If you have young children as I do, I hope you'll put them somewhere where they'll serve as a daily reminder of how we, as mothers, can instill a work ethic into our children! It is one of the greatest things we could ever do for them.