Hard Work

James tried an experiment with the boys on Monday of this week.  Here is how it was to work:  mom and dad were to try not to ask the boys to do anything (within reason) and that the boys were supposed to try to watch for things that needed to be done and just do it without being asked.  It started out nicely with the boys trying to watch for things to do and just do them.  By lunch things deteriorated a little but were still ok.  Then, dinner hit and dinner cleanup was a nightmare.  It took an entire hour for dinner to get cleaned up.  So, for family home evening we discussed the experiment.  James asked if they preferred being asked to do this and that all day or if they liked just trying to do it on their own.  They, of course, preferred not being asked over and over to do things.  Fortunately, we liked it better, too.  I mean really, what parent likes to ask their kids to clean up this and clean up that all day long.

But then we had to discuss how things didn't really get done well all day long without mom and dad asking them to do things.  But we talked about how this would take practice and hard work.  In particular we discussed how they had wasted so much time during dinner cleanup because they didn't just work hard and get it done.  In the end because they had taken so long we ran out of time before bedtime to get a family home evening treat.  So, they went to bed without one.  Now this is not such a big deal to you or me, but this was devastating to them.  Family home evening treat is something they look forward to all day long.

So, Tuesday was a new day and we started over.  It is really hard for me not to ask them to do things that I see need to be done, but I did pretty good.  During breakfast cleanup someone actually took the garbage out.  I even heard that person ask someone else to put a new bag in.  Impressive!  Lunch and school cleanup went well, but they were motivated by a trip to the pool with their friends.  I did have to tell them what needed to be done before they could go, so it wasn't a true test.  But after dinner it only took them 15 minutes to clean up (and it was a bigger cleanup than on Monday).  This was obviously a marked improvement over the 60 minute cleanup the night before.  They then asked me if they could watch something on Netflix and because they had time (because they worked hard) I said yes.

So, have they mastered hard work, not yet, but they are seeing the effects of hard work, watching for things that need to be done, and enjoying not being asked to do the basic things they are expected to do every day.  It is a win-win for all and will hopefully continue to improve with time.