Your kids are not helping if you force chores on them!

I totally disagree with the premise that children need extra chores in order to learn responsibility. Kids have their responsibilities a good example is their schoolwork which they must complete properly and on time.Kids are not adults and need play which is very important. There is a picture going around that presents things in a very wrong way. Notice it...

It shows on purpose two parents doing household chores while their kids lay around using smartphones. This is done in order to portray the parents as "servants" of the children which is a total misunderstanding of the different roles of parents and children in a family and the difference between adults and children. Kids should not be all day in front of screens rather they ought to be playing, exploring, exercising, reading, etc. Its not chores or sitting around!

If you were made to do chores you were not helping,. Helping is a voluntary act. I did help as a kid because I wanted to, I was never made to do chores. Our difference is therefore that you laboured while I helped! Now if you loved your tasks then good for you but if you had no choice in the matter it was by definition not helping.

You can teach a child how to do stuff without making that stuff his job. As an example my mother showed me how to make a cake but I was never the family baker! You can teach a child anything without making it his or her chore. I think we all know that very well. Also household chores are very easy to learn, they aren't rocket science.

I thank my mother every day for not loading or burdening me with chores as a child, making me thus a better human who wants to help out of love and concern for others, who does not force his housework on other people and who understands that kids are not mini adults and have needs that chores on kids promoters do not seem to grasp, sadly. There is absolutely no excuse to make kids do chores, I sincerely believe that the true reason behind it is not a concern for the child but the need of certain adults 1. To be authoritarian and bossy and 2. Well if junior takes out the trash or does the dishes then mummy or daddy won't have to which really is using kids for the benefit of adults, I challenge you to look up which word defines that. You will be shocked!

I have seen chore lists that by age 12 have the kids doing literally everything. Respect childhood, allow kids to be kids. Just because you were forced to do chores does not make it right or good parenting. Some kids have been beaten... should they beat up their little ones?

By the way my mother had to work too... she could not be a stay at home mum yet she did not force chores on us, she loved us more than anything and that taught us to love!