Sometimes patience is an insurmountable challenge for parents. We train ourselves to be there to help and guide our children. We are at the ready with tissues in one hand and disinfectant in the other. But I noticed as my kids grew and reached school age that parental dictates hardly worked. The Hub and I began treating our kids as little citizens in our own free market economy. We stopped assigning chores and handing out jobs. And we stopped handing out allowance. Instead we started a system of work-to-earn in our household. After all, in life we choose to work in order to make money to afford things we want to buy.
And so for years now my kids have worked off of “job cards” that they can pick up each day if they wish. Each card lists a job along with the price the Hub and I will pay for satisfactory completion. The activity is totally under my kids’ independent control. There have been months and months during which no one helped out around the house, followed by spurts of more help than I knew what to do with.
Overall, my kids grew into capitalists. There is theoretically no limit to the amount of money they can earn. They now maintain a fairly steady stream of job activity and even suggest we add “job cards” for additional clean up and repair activities around the house. The moment of crowning glory came a few weeks ago when my daughter asked if she could do some dishes as a job. If you knew my kids, you would know having one of them asking to tackle this “dirty job” is a huge event.
The amazing thing about a free market economy is that it works, even on a scale as small as our little homeschool. But you must have patience and you absolutely must not interfere or place regulations or mandates on the activity.
Now that my kids are older, and their piggy banks are brimming, I noticed a really wonderful thing happening: they have begun donating their time. They have enough money to feel comfortable and want to “give back” to our little community by doing jobs without compensation.
And so by being patient and trying to teach our own way, my kids understand self-determination, satisfaction, and charity. And I have help around the house.
So patience really does pay off.
