The Surprise (Even For Us) Of The Results And Benefits Of Expanding Responsibilities

In our world, the time of day that includes lunch and nap is the most demanding and possibly hectic. This is primarily because children are allowed to leave the table, take care of their bathroom needs and some cleaning up, get on their floor cot and sleep. This is all accomplished on an individual basis.

About one year ago, one of my assistants came up with the idea of assigning a “helper” role to each of the older children, this involved three of them.

Their responsibilities were: to get diapers, place blankets at the end of the color cots, assist with diaper changing, socks and shoe removal. They also, as needed, sat with younger children so they would feel safe and remain on the floor cots. They were clearly providing a secure, calming effect.
This plan quickly expanded to being a “helper” throughout the day. Helping the teachers with materials, reading to the younger children, reviewing early learning with them etc.

We were exceptionally pleased with their performance and also noted that the week that each child is a “helper” became their favorite. Not only did they talk about when their turn was coming up, but it became their favorite time. We saw them grow in terms of their self-confidence, empathy, patience and caring. 

This is a perfect approach that you can translate to your home. If you don’t already expect your child to be responsible for many of their personal tasks, please do so. If you already d, then maybe you can expand on that and include some family tasks especially if they have siblings.

You will be pleasantly surprised at the level of responsibility they will achieve. Occasionally we found some of the responsibilities they wanted to take on not practical, but we did our best to arrive at some compromise or alternative i.e. they could not be a classroom teacher but they could independently review some work with an individual child.

The more you can involve your child is your family tasks the better they will feel about themselves. Be consistent! Also be patient, give them time to achieve your standards, it will be worth it.
Their achievement is their reward. I do not feel this plan should have a tangible reward such as a gift of some kind.

Good luck!