Chores and Your Child with Special Needs
An article in the June issue of Connected Families, a parenting newsletter, encouraged parents to assign chores to very young children.
The Jacksons and Connected Families
Jim and Lynne Jackson, the article’s authors, told about a two-year-old who already knew how to set a table. They also list seven steps to train young children to do simple chores. You can read the entire article here. You can sign up for their newsletter at www.connectedfamilies.org.
Chores and Kids with Special Needs
The article also showed how doing chores fosters a sense of worth in young children. And that got me to thinking about how parents can foster a sense of worth in their kids with special needs by training them to do chores. Granted, it might be easier for parents to do the work themselves. Depending on a child’s special needs, creating an environment where they can perform chores is a challenge in itself. Kind of like the accommodations we expect the school system and our churches to do so our kids can be included there.
Our Special Needs Accommodation
We made a simple accommodation so our kids could set the table at an early age. (They were small for their age – not really a special need, but it did require accommodation.) We rearranged the kitchen cupboards and moved glasses, cups, and dishes to a low cupboard. The silverware was in an easy-to-pull out drawer close to the table and the dishwasher, so they could clean off the table and fill the dishwasher, too.
How About You?
So I’m wondering what accommodations you’ve made at your house so your child with special needs can do chores. And I’m wondering how you train your child to do appropriate chores. Share your tips in the comment box so others can try them, too.
Jolene
We have to remember why we are having our children do chores. So the long term goal is for them to be able to run their own house. We just changed up the chore assignment at our house this week. I learned something about my autistic spectrum son who is 9. He doesn’t like the noise the small vacuum cleaner makes. He has had the chore to use this vacuum to clean various parts of our house once a week for at least a year. Not a hard or difficult to do chore. Yet he did the job poorly almost every time. Yet, it was not until today when he was assigned another chore that he mentioned he couldn’t stand the way the vacuum cleaner sounded! So he learned to clean 3 bathrooms, a new chore which he performed with glee and gusto, but I learned something more important. If he resists a chore in the future, start trying to figure out why. For now I have much cleaner bathrooms.
You always have such interesting insights, Nancy. I guess the adaptation to help Phillip with vacuuming would be ear plugs…if he doesn’t have sensory issues that would cause the feel of ear plugs to drive him crazy.
Jolene
Phillip is such a mixed bag. He doesn’t seem to mind the large vacuum. Now to work on my trusting him with it.
Jolene – Thanks for posting this! We’re just now figuring out how all this works – or at least beginning to figure it out. Glad the piece was helpful.
You’re welcome, Jim. Thanks for the great advice. Life is all about figuring parenting out, isn’t it?
Jolene