Tuesday, September 14, 2010

School Free 'Aint Work Free

This baby's Godmother-to-be writes a series of blog posts about her family's unschooling experiences. Today I was reminded of her post about "Work" as I witnessed the following scene:

Harriet absolutely loves being part of the everyday running of our household (or at least she loves it for about two minutes before moving on to the next task). As I write this, Harriet is standing on a chair at the kitchen bench "cupping mushrooms" (she squeals with delight) with Ealesy, preparing our lunch.
She loves cooking and cleaning, though sometimes her help can be a hindrance to impatient parents who just want the job done and want it done properly. But most of the time Ealesy and I pull ourselves in line and think about the bigger picture: how great it is that Harri gets joy from helping, what wonderful lessons she is learning about being a functioning member of a family, that by the time she's a teenager she will be brilliantly practiced at all these tasks. Parental patience now, will hopefully pay off in the future. In the meantime giving her a practical task is a wonderful way to stave off boredom inspired winging or distract her from inconvenient or destructive behaviours (eg. "Hey Harri, instead of rolling toilet paper down the hallway how about we wash some dishes?" "YE-AH!!!!").