It was a Friday morning, almost 8:25. The older two had left for school an hour earlier, and my twins had been ready to go since 8:00. Our cleaning person was scheduled to come that day, so the twins had been in the playroom since about 8:00, tasked with cleaning up the expansive magnatile village they’d built and was covering nearly every bit of floor throughout the entire playroom.
I walked past the playroom and saw there were still magnatiles everywhere. I was really frustrated. They’d been in there for over 20 minutes, and they’d barely made a dent. They had to leave in five minutes.
“Hmmm,” I said, faking calm, “I see you haven’t finished.”
“Luke wasn’t cleaning! He was drawing!” Ally accused.
“I was cleaning! But then Ally wasn’t helping, so I stopped!” Luke retorted.
“Okay, it’s no problem,” I said, pretending the situation didn’t faze me, “I’d hoped you could have it done before Dena got here, but you can do it after school.” Both of them looked at me in surprise. I continued, “And when you’re done, you can dust everything in here, vacuum the rug, and wash the wooden floors like Dena would have done. It shouldn’t take you all that long.”
“But...” Ally started, but then faded off.
“Ally,” Luke said, intensely, “let’s just get this done as fast as we can. We have five minutes.”
“Either way,” I said, and walked away.
Five minutes later, when it was time to get their coats and shoes on, they had cleaned up every magnatile in the room and even cleaned the paper and markers off the art table.
After the kids left for school, I was thinking how the incident was a good illustration of what I’d been talking to a family about the evening before. We don’t want to make our kids’ problems our problems. Even if we kind of feel it is our problem, we can try to turn it back into their problem.
So, yes, I was annoyed that they hadn’t cleaned the playroom. I was leaving for work soon, and I just wanted the house ready so that I could come home to my bi-weekly treat of a freshly cleaned house. It’s like my favorite thing... I look forward to it for days, okay? My life isn’t that exciting.
But, what might have happened if I’d gone in the playroom and yelled? My guess is they would have just continued to defend their positions. Ally would have told me more about how Luke was drawing instead of cleaning, and Luke would have insisted he stopped cleaning only after Ally wasn’t helping. And, if I had coerced them to begin cleaning, I highly doubt they would have cleaned with the speed the prospect of spending their precious Friday evening vacuuming, dusting, and mopping inspired.
Of course, I also preferred to enjoy our time that evening, rather than go through the process of having them clean, but I had to appear like I was okay with either option, because then they knew it was all up to them.
This philosophy of letting the kids own their own problems comes up in many areas of children’s lives, but I see if most often with homework. We want to be aware of our kids’ assignments, ask questions as needed, and be available to help if they ask. But, the kids need to shoulder most of the responsibility for themselves. If we find ourselves constantly reminding and/or pleading with kids to do their homework, we’ve made it our problem. If it’s our problem, it doesn’t have to be the child’s problem. And, if we take away the problem from them, we’ve also taken away all the things they could learn and all the self-esteem they could gain from their success.
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