I recently read a very interesting article/blog that highlighted one Mum’s new revolution on how much we do for children. I’ll add a link here, so that I don’t take the credit. http://www.yourmodernfamily.com/stop/

The basic idea of this post is that we are doing far too much for children which is potentially doing more harm than good. I really enjoyed the description of the event that this woman used. It made me think back to my childhood in a way. I was always the child who would go to my friends house and try to keep as much to myself as possible in regards to their possessions or when offered food. I was terrified that I would make a mess and their parents would be angry, whereas my friends seemed not to care. They would tell me to leave wrappers on the floor or to leave my dirty plate for her mum. I felt very uncomfortable knowing that I was effecting someones home and leaving them to tidy up after me.

Taking this all into consideration I think back at how my mum raised me to help out and mentally thank her. She would help me tidy my room, but never do it herself, she would encourage me to pick up my toys and take my dishes to the kitchen when i’ve used them. I would help her dust and I understood the importance of my actions at a young age. I grew up to continue to help my mum around the house and it set me up to do well at school too. I was used to having responsibilities and could cope with them well. I think starting to get young children to take small responsibilities around the house can really do them well and set them up for a good future. So many things in life depend on having responsibilities and following them through effectively. We should all teach our children to take responsibility and enjoy it.

I then started to think about how teachers could promote this. I have previously come across teachers who kept plants in their classroom, and each week a new child would have the job to water this plant. This is a small example of a responsibility that is not too complicated for a young child. We can help children to become more responsible, they may need reminders now and then, but that is all part of our nurture.

This was a very interesting post to me and I enjoyed the thoughts it brought to me and hope I can use these in my future career as a teacher. I have a new found interest in the way we encourage children to take responsibility and how it can effect them throughout their lives. This is looked into more in the original post and I do not feel comfortable discussing these points as they are put forward so well there, but I do greatly believe that doing too much for our children can lead to lazy, dependent adults.