A common ‘complaint’ of parents with toddlers is… how do you get your housework done?  Especially when they start dropping their afternoon nap!  That was my only time to catch up!

Savvy parents don’t try to separate their children from the care of their homes, they include them.  Rather than waiting until your child is asleep or being watched by another family member or distracted with shiny toys –  bring them in on the action!

After all, what better gift could you give to your children than the knowledge of how to look after a home? The typical toddler is hungry for independence and is keen to imitate everything they see adults doing.  They really, really love to help with housework, they truly crave knowledge and skills in regards to looking after themselves and their environments. Montessori philosophy recognizes this as a “sensitive period” for “order”, and in fact Montessori education for toddlers focuses on those very practical skills rather than “academic” ones: things like folding towels, washing dishes, pouring liquids and dry goods, sweeping the floor.

Certainly it would make sense to capitalize on this instinctive drive, this love for work, making household care a habit for them while they’re in a stage where they are so keen for it, rather than waiting until they are older and just hate “chores”!

My daughter Pomme just turned two years old a couple of weeks ago.  She puts her toys and work away when she is finished (most of the time), and puts them away in a very careful and orderly manner.   She empties the dishwasher and puts away the cutlery, and hands me the glasses and plates that she can’t reach. (I take out sharp things first). She helps set the table. She helps transfer the laundry from the washer to the dryer. Then she helps sort the clean laundry — she knows which clothes belong to whom, and will help organize it into piles, and then will carry it into the right rooms. She tries to fold towels (and doesn’t do too badly) and puts kitchen towels in the right drawers. She puts her own dirty clothes into the laundry room. She takes her dirty dishes to the sink. She has a shelf with some cutlery and dishes just for her and can get herself a drink of water. She cleans up her own spills with cloths or sponges. She helps sweep the floor. She vacuums the floors and gets mad if you try to vacuum without her! She even helps with cooking — she stands on a chair, wears an apron, and helps stir things, scoop flour, shake in spices, I’ve even let her (carefully supervised) do stuff at the stove, like turn frying hot dogs with tongs, or stir boiling pasta.

She loves every moment of it.  I never forced her to do any of this — I simply recognized her desire to be involved, and rather than consider her as being ‘in the way’ and send her away to do ‘kid stuff’, I enabled her to participate, gave her tasks she could accomplish, and watched what she was capable of doing on her own without any preconceptions of what she “should” be able to do.

Oh, of course there are times when she is just not in the mood to ‘help’.  If something absolutely must get done, then I will get her occupied (or wait until she occupies herself on her own) and do things then.   At this age, children do not need to be as constantly monitored as when they were younger, we just need to check in on them, keeping half an eye on them, even if they’re in the next room. When Pomme gets into some of her Montessori-inspired work, she will often be completely focused and absorbed in the activity for a good 20 minutes.

Or if she’s in a clingy mood, cranky and tired, I’ll put her in a sling. Whatever it takes to get things done.

The point is, however, that these are not the default, the ‘normal’ way of doing things in our house.  They are the fallbacks, what we do when the ‘normal’ way — her being involved — is not going to work.

This was not how I did things with Flipper when he was a toddler.  Today at ten years old, he cannot fold a towel or a blanket neatly.  He cannot hang up his clean clothes, or fold his shirts and put them away in an orderly fashion.  He is next to clueless with laundry.  He does not know how to sweep the floor or wash a glass.  Even a simple task such as wiping up a spill, or wringing out a wet washcloth, he has great difficulty with. His cooking skills are limited to a grilled cheese sandwich, and reheating things in the microwave.

And yes, I have tried to teach him.  But he is very resistant to learning any of these things.  I let it go for too long, believing that he was still ‘too young’ to be learning any household chores.  Instead, I missed the ‘sensitive period’ and now it is an arduous task — difficult both for me to teach, and for him to learn.

I thought that I was following him, I thought this was child-led: by not forcing him to do chores when he was ‘too young’ I believed that he would not build up resistance and would therefore be keen to help when he simply became old enough.  But I failed to recognize his instinctive drive at the correct time.  In effect, I ‘forced’ him to play instead and now that is all he wants to do.  His potential for absorbing these skills when he would have been receptive to them was never fulfilled.

As parents, sometimes we must let go of our preconceptions, which often are misconceptions, of what a young child “should” be able to do, and “should” be doing with their time (ie., only running around and playing with bright, shiny, fun toys).  They are in reality capable of so much more.  Give your toddler the chance to participate in your “adult” housework, and prepare to be astonished, both at the skill and at the joy and pride they show in so doing!

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