Kiddos start out as babies, unable to properly do… well let’s be honest, anything productive. Over time, they slowly start to learn all types of things.
Eventually these nuggets get to the point where they can start to accomplish things themselves. Very, very poorly at first, but still growing in their abilities.
I have said in the past how it is important to let the nuggets take on these activities and chores as they are “ready”. This is harder than you think because there is so much to do and many of us are wired for efficiency. We must be willing to slow down and let them struggle through it and sit with them to provide immediate praise and corrective feedback.
There is another related point to this topic. Unfortunately this one is hard for me, it falls into the “I wish I would have done this better at this”.
We get so excited when our kiddo reaches the point where they can take some small piece of the million things we have on our plate. This is true celebration time and our brains immediately search, and easily find, something else to fill the space. Kiddo can dress themselves? Awesome, now I can sweep the kitchen directly after breakfast. Kiddo can clean their room? Excellent, now I can do my Bible study during those precious minutes of quiet.
What now realize is that this skips an important step. Kiddos need a pretty lengthy transition period where they are “able”, but not quite ready to be turned loose. The reason is that they are forming important habits that will form how they will naturally perform a job. Often by the time you realize they are doing some step poorly you realize they have now trained themselves to quickly and easily do a job 50-80% correct. As you can imagine, this leads to correction time. Dressing themselves, but throwing PJs on the floor. Putting clothes away, but drawers are a disaster. “Cleaning” the room, but mess and clutter growing everywhere.
The solution? I would recommend a long transition of hands on instruction, then daily sitting and watching, then daily thorough “checking” and eventually spot checking somewhat frequently.
Hope this helps…