The price of convenience
Dependant on how you buy your rice, you could be paying double to have it ready in 2 minuets instead of 25. You could spend a small amount of money on ‘quick oats’ ready in 5 minuets or a portably larger amount of money for less product to have your porridge ready in 90 seconds. Your paying for the convince of having something ready in less time, with less effort than the same product would otherwise take. Your paying the price of convenience. What dose this have to do with children? Well children are by default, inconvenient. It will take me twice as long to do something with them as it takes for me to do the task on my own. So why let them help you at all?
In childcare, the belief is that children are taught just as much though my voice as they are though my actions. If I cut it out, draw it, build it, serve it for them, they learn that if they ask for it, they get it and I’m better at getting it for them, so why should they try. I’m better at it because I’m faster and more experienced at any given task than the children I work with, and that’s the problem experience. In the adult world, most jobs require a level of demonstrated experience in the same field or a qualification to demonstrate that you have the knowledge to fill the demands of the role. The issue, if you don’t have the employment history or the qualification, your iced out of the role. Think of life as a job, children are unqualified, inexperienced and therefore, iced out.
The only way to teach anyone to do anything is time consuming, laborious, unproductive and expensive in way of time and effort. You can’t complete a task until you know how to do it and the only way to gain vital experience at anything is to do it for yourself. This includes keeping yourself alive, let alone any ability to become a productive member of society. Teaching children the skills they need to achieve either standard has a price in way of time and effort, that’s the price of convenience. Teaching children how to do basic tasks beginning from a young age allows your children to become ‘convenient’ over time. Your child, all being well, should get to a stage where they can more or less keep themselves alive and will start to perform a role in society. This will start to save you time and energy, in a way, the investment in way of time and effort in teaching your children life skills will pay out over time. Just like buying the cheeper product and putting a little more time and energy will save you money over time.
Remember, kids are smart. They pick up on every little thing, every single time and will spit that information back out at you at their convenience, so use that to your advantage. Allow them to ‘help’ you cook, clean and care for their needs. Use their curiosity and growing want for independence to your advantage too, they will want to learn how to do it. Nature has pre-programmed your child to want to learn life skills from around 2 years old, nurture is to encourage that in every possible way. Even faking it a little gets you a long way, water in a spray bottle that is kept separately from the cleaners is great for children to ‘clean’ with, you can buy child safe knifes that cut food but not children. Use monopoly money to simulate managing finances. Play their game and allow them to learn these skills in a safe protected environment.
If young children are unqualified, inexperienced and lack the knowledge needed to succeed at life, giving them the knowledge, experience and qualifications to succeed at the price of convenience. Children are the cheap bags of uncooked rice that takes 25 minuets to boil. Invest your time in to teaching them to become the smaller, more expensive packs that take 2 minuets in the microwave, the cost is time and effort in the short term and children will become easier as they learn the skills they need to keep themselves alive.
Activity of the week, finger painting is a great way to expose your child to textures and visual stimulation.
You will need,
Paint
Paper
A tray
Some wipes
Place the paint onto a small tray, put the paper down beside it and encourage your child to press their fingers into the paper and place it onto the paper. For best results, wipe their hands off between colures so that they don’t mix too much.