讓孩子嘗試自己做一些家務

讓孩子嘗試自己做一些家務

So much of parenting requires risk analysis.

很多育兒工作都需要風險分析。

On one hand, we have the future well-being of our children to consider. If we don't teach them to clean up after themselves, they might grow up to be messy and entitled brats.

一方面，我們要考慮孩子們未來的幸福。如果我們不教他們自己打掃衛(wèi)生，他們長大后可能會變成邋遢的、自以為是的孩子。

On the other hand, we have the current well-being of us, the parents, to take into account. We are living in the age of burnout.

另一方面，我們要考慮到我們身為父母目前的幸福狀況。我們生活在一個筋疲力盡的時代。

There's so much to squeeze into a day (jobs need to be worked, dishes need to be cleaned, stories need to be read, etc). Is it really so wrong to cut the tedious child-led clean-up session out of the daily schedule?

每天都有很多事情要做(做工作，洗盤子，讀故事，等等)。把枯燥乏味的孩子清掃工作從每天的日程安排中剔除真的有那么錯嗎?

The short answer is, absolutely not. With few exceptions, there's no single activity that can make or break our children's characters. Maybe your kids don't clean up their toys, but they do other chores like feeding the dog or setting the table.

簡而言之，絕對不是。除了少數(shù)例外，沒有任何單一的活動可以塑造或破壞我們孩子的性格。也許你的孩子不清理他們的玩具，但他們做其他的家務，如喂狗或擺桌子。

There are oh so many ways to instill a sense of responsibility in our children. If you aren't doing any of them, or if your kid loses it when you make any request, then you have a bigger problem.

在我們的孩子身上灌輸責任感的方法有很多。如果你沒有做其中的任何一件，或者你的孩子沒做好你提出任何要求，那么你的問題就會更大。

Carla Naumburg, said parents need to remember that "it is not their job to teach their children everything."

卡拉·納姆伯格說，父母們需要記住，“他們的工作并不是把一切交給孩子。”

"We parents expect ourselves to be the teacher, the coach, the therapist, the cook, the judge. Everything! Parents need to trust that other people in their kids' lives are teaching their kids, too," she said, adding that it's fairly common for children to have to clean up after themselves in school.

“我們父母希望自己成為老師、教練、治療師、廚師和法官。想成為一切!家長們需要相信，孩子們生活中的其他人也在教育孩子，”她補充說，孩子們在學校里自己打掃衛(wèi)生是相當普遍的。

Daniel Siegel, a child psychologist and co-author of "The Whole-Brain Child" and other parenting books, encourages a quality-over-quantity approach to teaching children responsibility. He wants parents to put their energy into something they have the bandwidth to do and then stick with it.

《全腦兒童》等育兒書籍的作者之一、兒童心理學家丹尼爾·西格爾，他鼓勵采用質量高于數(shù)量的方法來教孩子負責任。他希望父母們把精力放在他們有能力做的事情上，然后堅持下去。

Adding that parents should think hard about which responsibility lessons feel necessary to them.

西格爾補充說，父母應該認真思考哪些責任課程對他們來說是必要的。

Some issues, like teaching a child not to play with knives, are obviously urgent. Other issues, like a child who doesn't finish his Cheerios every morning, are obviously trivial. It's the ones in the middle, which might include getting your child to clean up after themselves, that can be most challenging to figure out how to handle.

有些問題，比如教孩子不要玩刀，顯然是緊急的。其他問題，比如一個孩子每天早上都不吃完他的麥圈，顯然是無關緊要的。而處于中間的事情，包括讓你的孩子自己打掃衛(wèi)生，是最難處理的。

"You have to decide, what's the deal?" he said. "If you come to the conclusion that teaching your children to clean up after themselves is important to you, then you have to make the time to do it. If you don't, let it go."

“你必須做出決定，到底要不要做?”他說。“如果你認為教育孩子自己打掃衛(wèi)生對你來說很重要，那么你就必須騰出時間來做這件事。如果你不喜歡，那就隨它去吧。”

Naumburg said she sees a lot of parents getting too ambitious with their lessons and then feeling overwhelmed as a result. For example, when she wanted her daughters to learn to cook, she didn't start with a big, elaborate recipe. Instead, she let them open a bag of frozen broccoli and dump it in a pot.

納姆伯格說，她看到很多家長在（育兒）功課上過于雄心勃勃，結果感到不堪重負。例如，當她想讓她的女兒們學習烹飪時，她不會一開始就準備一個大而復雜的食譜。相反，她讓他們打開一袋冷凍西蘭花，倒進鍋里。

"The truth is, kids learn grit and resilience in small moments, too," she said.

她說:“事實上，孩子們在很小的時候就學會了勇氣和適應力。”

If you decide that teaching your kids to clean up their toys is important to you, remember that it's OK to start small. Maybe at the beginning, it's just the dolls in the hallway or the Legos on the table. Maybe they are in charge of putting away 10 things or cleaning up for three minutes -- something I often do with my children -- and then you do the rest.

如果你認為教你的孩子清理玩具對你很重要，記住可以從小的時候著手。也許剛開始的時候，只是走廊里的玩偶或者桌上的樂高玩具。也許他們只負責收起來十件東西，或者清理三分鐘——這是我經常和孩子們一起做的事情——然后你來做剩下的事情。

Remember, mess is a subjective concept. Where one person sees "Grey Gardens," another might see Marie Kondo.

記住，混亂是一個主觀的概念。一個人看到的是“灰色花園”，另一個人可能看到的是近藤麻理惠。