Little Red hen

Once upon a time, there was a Little Red Hen. The Little Red Hen wanted to make some bread but didn’t have any grain to hand. The Little Red Hen chose to plant some wheat and asked her friend Horse for help, Horse made an excuse to avoid doing any work toward the Little Red Hen’s goals, leaving Little Red Hen to do it all by herself. Once the wheat had grown, Little Red Hen asked mouse to help her collect the wheat and seperate the wheat storks from the wheat grain. Mouse refuses and again Little Red Hen does all the work herself. Little Red hen also asked Cow to help grind the grain into flour, Sheep to fetch water and Pig to mix the dough but nobody helped her. Finally, she place the loaf of bread into the oven. Once the bread came out of the oven, Horse, Mouse, Cow, Sheep and Pig gathered around the freshly baked loaf. Horse said ‘Little Red Hen, that bread smells good, can we have a pice?’ Little Red hen asked if anyone had helped Make the bread, The other animals said no, so Little red hen didn’t share her bread.

I know what your saying, why have I just read a fable about farm animals? Well the answer is simple. The little red hen collected by Mary Maples Dodge in 1874 as well as other similar fables by writers like Aesop explore the ideas of ownership and responsibility over a workload. Lets pivot, a workload could be anything. It can be tasks your boss assigns you at your job, it could be tasks related to managing a household. Whilst I don’t condone child labor, I do condone the idea of children assisting in household management. Its better in the long run to make the ‘rookie’ mistakes as early as possible in a safe and supportive environment where it really doesn’t matter when you get it wrong. I’m not suggesting that you force your child to participate, nor do I suggest that your child be held responsible for a task without parental support. I just want the error to me made whilst their under your roof. So what do I suggest your child do?

I want your child to select a task, this isn’t a chore, there is no reward for completing this task. I want you to assist them with said task as an after school activity as the task needs to be repeated. I want you to set your child up for success every single time they attempt it and as they get better at it you will need to help them less. I also don’t want you to rely on your child to get the task done. This isn’t their job, It’s yours, you are the responsible adult, your just teaching your child to help, take ownership of their work and survive out in the real world. These are real world skills, cooking, cleaning, packing away, grocery shopping and budgeting are all tasks that can be taught to children. These are all tasks that your child can take ownership of and complete on a regular basses with adult guidance. These are tasks that a child can partake in without risk whilst supervised, in your care. These are all tasks that children need to learn to do to make something out of themselves. So give them a place to learn without the pressure of being relied upon to do so.

I don’t condone child labor, I do condone the idea of children assisting in household management. Its better in the long run to make the ‘rookie’ mistakes as early as possible in a safe and supportive environment where it really doesn’t matter when you get it wrong. I’m not suggesting that you force your child to participate, nor do I suggest that your child be held responsible for a task without parental support. I just want the error to me made whilst their under your roof.

The error I’m referring to is mistakes made when completing tasks that I like to call ‘basic needs of survival’. These can include but are not limited to:

• Cooking

• Cleaning

• Self care

• Personal hygiene

• Money management

These tasks can be taught from a young age thought playing games and encouraging use of imagination. Things like having them run a shop wherein they ‘sell’ you a product and you pay for it using fake currency. I recommend doing this with play currency that resembles that used in your home country and teaching them a perceived value of each note or coin. Once they have the hang of this you could elaborate by giving them a small amount of real money. This concept is called pocket money, its an allowance given in regular increments that isn’t related to chores. You could also allow them limited usage of your real money to complete another task on that list, buying food to cook.

On the topic of chores, as an educator I cannot recommend them. I believe that your children should be expected to contribute to the running of the household, but these behaviours shouldn’t be rewarded with monetary prizes. If you set an expectation of being paid to complete ‘basic needs of survival’ early on, your removing the motivation that is a sense of achievement and they will fail to complete tasks once the money is gone.

As mentioned, cooking is another item on our list of ‘basic needs of survival’, start your child out aged one or two, just mixing batters and ‘decorating’ as required. Box cake mixes, pizzas, nachos, all of these need mixing or ‘decorating’ skills. Your toddler can do that, and Its also great for fine motor skills. As they get older, they can peel and chop up meat and veg, before moving on to dealing with hot things.

Ironically, toddlers also love cleaning, I recommend giving them a spray bottle full of water to clean services, or allowing them to wash up their own plastic dished in lukewarm warm slightly soapy water. Tea time with your preschooler can be served on, eaten, and cleaned up by themselves. It’s about allowing your child to take ownership of their work and slowly removing adult guidance, by the time your child is 13, 14 years old, they should have a pretty good idea of how to keep themselves alive.

Activity of the week and on the topic of cooking my nana makes a apple and sour cream slice that’s dead easy to make and tastes amazing, one of the advantages of having your child hep make it is that they’re more inclined to try it too.

You will need:

• Box cake mix

• 150g of butter

• 800g tinned apples

• Sour cream

• Baking dish

• Nutmeg

Tip cake mix into large bowl, melt your butter and add to the bowl. Stir until a crumbly texture is achieved and press into a lined baking dish. Spread the apples over the top then the sour cream. Dust the nutmeg over the top and bake at 180c for 30 minuets.