- When a blizzard hit, I was concerned about my children being home without me, but they were fine.
- I've been assigning my kids chores since they were toddlers, which has made them more responsible.
When I left for town one afternoon, the sun was shining. But an hour later, the wind began to rage as it blew sheets of snow across the prairie. In response, the highway department closed the interstate, and I was stuck figuring out how to get back to the homestead.
My husband, Christian, was at home with the kids but preoccupied with calving — babies are always born during a blizzard. As I slowly made my way north on the back roads, I called to check in on my 11-year-old, who was in the house with her siblings. "Mom, we're fine," she replied matter-of-factly as I expressed my concern. "I just put a batch of biscuits in the oven, we added wood to the fire, and I'm keeping an eye on Ingrid (the very pregnant goat). It's no big deal."
Clearly, my savvy preteen was unfazed by the prairie drama that swirled around her.
Ninety minutes later, I arrived home to a cozy house and dinner on the table. The kids stood in the doorway with Cheshire cat smiles. As they showed me the waiting biscuits and gravy and gave reports on the goats and calves, their pride was palpable. They walked a little taller, knowing they had stepped up to the plate and played a valuable role in our family operations that night.
By asking too little of kids, we make them less confident
"Our culture tells us our kids are fragile and weak, but in reality, they are so much more capable than most parents think," said Katie Kimball, TEDx speaker and creator of the "Kids Cook Real Food" program, in a recent conversation we had. Katie is the leading voice of healthy kids cooking and a passionate advocate for teaching children real-life skills.
"This generation of parents asks too little of their kids because too little was asked of them. We try to make their lives easier, but on accident, we make their adulthoods more difficult and strip from them the sense of security and confidence that knowing how to handle life skills would give them."
Like many researchers, Kimball connects our culture's lack of confidence and self-esteem to the rise in depression and anxiety in teens. "They feel out of control," Kimball stated. "They're depressed because they don't feel rooted to family and friends, and they don't feel like they control their environment at all. We know that, as human beings, when we have boundaries, we feel safe, but we also need to be able to be agents of our own destiny within those boundaries."
Giving kids age-appropriate tasks makes families stronger
"When parents do everything for their kids, they think they are keeping their children safe and protected, when in fact, psychologically, they are doing the exact opposite. Because kids don't feel like they can do anything to improve their life or take care of themselves, they are infused with a sense of insecurity," Kimball said.
Over the years, I've discovered that plenty of free play tempered with healthy boundaries and a helping of age-appropriate responsibility is the magic combination for our family. It helps our home to run more smoothly and leaves my kids with no doubt that they are an important part of our team.
Here are a few of the strategies we've used over the years — maybe some of these ideas will work for your family, too:
Start small
If your children are too little to have their own solo tasks, let them help you with yours. Toddlers love to help — I do use this term loosely. They can empty small wastebaskets, sweep the floor, or carry laundry to the washing machine. Yes, it will take longer, and sometimes they make a bigger mess in the process. But the time you invest during those early years pays off.
Barn chores used to take us forever. We'd put on the snowsuits, hats, gloves, and boots, gather up the blankies, and finally head outside. They'd accidentally break the eggs and leave gates open. They'd fall down, take a million bathroom breaks, or forget things. It was a circus of chaos. But we survived. And the day your kids beam with confidence as they make supper for the family and do the dishes afterward is the day you'll realize it was all worth it.
Move up the ladder
As they grow, kids can graduate to more challenging tasks. Around age four, our kids started feeding the dogs. Then they moved up to gathering eggs. Then it was on to feeding the chickens, before eventually graduating to the rest of the barn chores.
Fast-forward to today, my three kids handle the entire barnyard on a daily basis, including feeding hay, chopping ice, managing the milk cow, and moving animals from pen to pen. They rarely need my help, and they take a lot of pride in their ability to keep things running smoothly. Every family and every child is different, so you get to tailor responsibilities according to your children's ability. Just remember, they are almost always more capable than we think.
Excerpted from "Old-Fashioned on Purpose: Cultivating a Slower, More Joyful Life" (HarperCollins/Park Row Books, September 26, 2023). Reprinted with permission from HarperCollins/Park Row Books.