My 3-year-old recently told me he wants to live with us forever. I’m glad he likes being in our home. But my ultimate goal for my children is for them to be responsible, independent adults who will move out and take care of themselves and lead happy, productive lives. That means raising children who can do hard things.

        Around our house, jobs are hard things. I believe children need to learn to work and be responsible. Many times I hear, “I can’t mow the lawn,” or “I can’t make my bed,” or “I can’t clean my room, it’s too hard.” A good formula for teaching children to work and follow through on tasks is show, share, see, sit back. 

Show 
Show your child how to tuck in the corners and pull the blanket tight on his bed. Show him how to squirt cleaner in the toilet and scrub it clean. Show him how to pull up a weed from the root.

Share 
Work together. Pull one corner tight on the bed as your child pulls the other corner. While your child scrubs the inside of the toilet, wipe the outside. Kneel together in the garden and pull up weeds.

See
Watch your child straighten the blanket, flattening out the wrinkles. Sit on the edge of the bathtub as your child shines the toilet. Work a couple of rows over from your child in the garden.

Sit Back
This is when you’ve taught your child how to do a job, and she is capable of completing the task. Now you can sit back and do something else; you know they’re in control and capable. Work is still work and most of us don’t jump at the chance to do it. Neither do our children.

        To encourage children to do hard things, you can simplify, make work fun, walk away from confrontations, and develop their self-confidence.

Simplify 

A job or homework may seem overwhelming to your child. Simplify the task by breaking it into small steps. Tell your child to pick up all the green blocks. Then do the red blocks. Or pick up all the cars first. When my oldest daughter was in fourth grade, she was overwhelmed by the timed math tests. She knew the answers to the multiplication problems, but she couldn’t complete the test in the minute allotted. We timed her to see how long it took her to complete the test. Then she worked against her own time, completing it faster and faster until she could do it in a minute. This way she knew she could complete the test and she felt confidence.

“I Can” Cup

For young children and even older children, an “I Can” or job cup makes work more fun. Write the jobs that need to be done on slips of paper and put them in the cup. Add fun “jobs” too, such as hop on one foot or do a somersault or have a snack. Then have the children choose the jobs out of the cup. One morning I had a lot of work to do around the house. My 3-year-old only wanted to play computer games, but I wanted him to work with me. I put all the jobs in the job cup and included fun ones, too. He was excited to pick from the cup and helped me clean the bathrooms and the showers, vacuum out the car, and sing a song.

Walk Away

If your child refuses to do jobs or homework, do you lecture, scream, give up, and do it yourself? “I can” parents keep their cool. They don’t get angry. Anger is not the way you want your child to handle hard things. So don’t get angry yourself—you must be the parent. Talk in a calm but firm way and hold the child responsible. Say, “You need to set the table.” And walk away. Don’t do the job for him. Don’t argue, don’t plead, don’t deal out punishments. Walk away. Leave the room, go out to the backyard, shut yourself in your bedroom. This stops the show. The child is much more likely to then follow through on the job. Even my 3-year-old is more willing to do a job if I’m not standing over him with a sour face, daring him to either do his job or defy me.

        We all need a little space sometimes. Come back when you are calm. If your child yells at you, you can say, “I don’t like it when you yell at me,” and walk away again. When you are both calm, discuss what happened. Talk about how the child can react better. Remind your child that he can set the table. He did it yesterday. Remember to show lots of love to your child.

Time to Talk

A great way to show lots of love is to listen. Make time to talk with your child. Each night of the week, I visit with one child. I’ve enjoyed getting to know each of my children as a person instead of just coping with the rush of the day. The principal at our school reminded us at Back to School Night that we shouldn’t respond, “Oh, you’ll be fine,” when your child shares something that is hard. To your child, he’s experiencing a very hard thing. Listen. Ask questions. Listen some more. And then share a story. I’ve found this is a great way to communicate with my children without lecturing. Share when you had a hard time with something and how you handled it. Children love stories. Stories connect us to one another.

Consequences and

Self-Confidence

An “I can” kid accepts the consequences of her actions. Don’t enable. If your child puts off a book report until the last minute, don’t scramble to help her finish. Allow your child to experience the consequences of her choices. If you rescue your child from doing the book report or panic and help her with her book report, she won’t learn that she has to accept responsibility for her actions. Remember that lack of planning on your child’s part does not constitute a crisis on yours.

        What about self-confidence? Should you praise your child for everything? Better actions increase self-confidence. When a child sees that he can do something hard, he feels better about himself. Guide your child in drawing conclusions about how to handle a hard situation. Don’t fix the problem for your child. Check back with your child to see how the situation turned out. Remind your child that she lived through telling her teacher she didn’t finish her report or telling her friend she is sorry, or asking a teacher for help on a math assignment. She accomplished the task before. She can do it again.

        My middle school daughter’s English teacher believes that successful students believe in themselves. One way to increase self-confidence is with positive affirmations, telling yourself you can accomplish something. Confidence isn’t smugness or snobbery but a healthy self-image. Success in anything, whether it be athletics, music, art, or being a good babysitter, leads to self-confidence. She believes that parents who help their children find ways to be successful help to build self-confidence in their children.

        How do you get your child to feel good about himself when others are mean? The same English teacher has observed that adolescents are gifted at put-downs, at sarcasm, at trying to make themselves feel better by putting others down. Teach your children to see the good in others, to say kind things, to be positive. Be an example of speaking kindly about others. Don’t gossip. Be compassionate.

        Once you’ve raised children who can be responsible and do hard things, they begin to amaze you. That’s payback time as a parent. And all too soon, your child will leave you behind. My 3-year-old now wants to live at his friend’s house where he has so much fun playing. I told him I would miss him. He told me I can get another child! 

Suggested Resources

The Total Transformation Program by James Lehman, thetotaltransformation.com.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, by Sean Covey

Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World by H. Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelsen

Docena Holm has five children between the ages of 3 and 16. They give her lots of opportunities to practice these “I Can” techniques.