How To Get Kids To Do Chores
If hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it.
But there it was, right in front of me: A preteen voluntarily doing chores around the house.
There was no fuss. No nagging or whining. And there were no visible rewards.
I was visiting Maya families in the Yucatan, reporting for NPR's special parenting series #HowToRaiseAHuman. While I was interviewing one mom her 12-year-old daughter went over to the dishes and started washing away — without being asked.
"She is old enough to understand what needs to be done around the house," Maria de los Angeles Tun Burgos told me through a translator. "Sometime I go a way from the house, and when I come back, I find the house cleaned and everything picked up."
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At a neighbor's home, I saw the phenomenon again. A 12-year-old daughter started mopping the floor, without being asked. Her younger sister helped her mom feed the chickens, water the plants and happily ran to the corner store to pick up meat for dinner.
What in the heck was going on? Was there something in the Yucatan water or did these Maya moms know the secret to raising helpful kids? Read more here.