Work for Children

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Feb 23, 1905

Work for Children

ONE mistake of parents is in not seeing the benefits of work for children,—work suited to their years and strength, and which shall teach them self-reliance, develop skill, give them a sense of their own value, and an idea of the dignity of labor.

One of the first impulses of the child is to do something. When he is taking his toys to pieces, we call him destructive. It may be possibly the constructive impulse that is moving him. We have given him everything in so complete a form that he has no outlet for his own constructive energies, except in destroying the perfect object and remodeling it after his own designs. We would be much wiser to give him constructive material, and allow him to give expression to himself in the use of this material. Thus we should give him work to do that would develop his faculties, instead of stultifying them by our mistaken kindness.

What we call the play of the child is, in fact, his occupation, his work. Very early in life he manifests a desire to aid us in our work, and we will be wise to heed this desire and gratify it. Nothing gives the child more real satisfaction than the idea that he is helpful.

What we call his mischief may have had its origin in the sweetest impulse to be of use. I remember reading about a little fellow who undertook to dust a room in mama’s absence in order to help her. In his unskilled awkwardness, he broke a valuable vase. He was sorry for this, but to his mind it was not as important as the fact that he had worked and helped mama. As I recall the incident, the mother was wise enough to see the real motive, and did not blame the child for the accident, and did commend him for his helpful spirit, though I believe she incidentally suggested that it would be better for him to work under mother’s direction than of his own undirected impulse. It would take much true wisdom really to feel and to act as if the spirit of the child were of more real value than the broken vase, which, after all, was but a thing.

Very young children can be made to feel that they are helpful, and with careful teaching soon become so. I can remember when my little boy of three helped me to make the beds, and felt a great sense of importance at being allowed to stand on the farther side and pull the covers straight as I threw them over to him; and he was even more particular than I that every wrinkle should be smoothed out, and the quilts tucked in properly. The daily task was to him then a great pleasure; it has since proved a very valuable education.

I can remember, too, how in my own childhood my earnest pleas to be allowed to help were repulsed with the words, “Oh, you are in the way! I could do it a dozen times while I am showing you how.” Since then I have heard many mothers say the same thing, and perhaps add the stinging words, “Oh, you’re very anxious to help now, but when you are big enough to really be of some assistance, you won’t want to help then.”

This often has proved a true prophecy, but the child was not to blame. We can hardly expect that he will continue to proffer aid that is always repulsed, or later desire to do things he was not permitted to do in former years. Now that he has grown older, he has grown into new interests, his activities have been developed in other directions; no wonder that he does not wish to retrace his steps and begin the things he should have learned years ago.

Many mothers, looking upon work as an unqualified evil, perhaps because of their own overburdened lives, refrain from calling upon their children for assistance, and justify themselves by the apology, “I want them to have a good time, as they will never be young but once. They will have plenty to do when they grow older.”

This is reasoning from false premises. In the first place, a reasonable amount of suitable work really adds to the pleasure of the child; it is, in reality, play to him, for play is his business. Again, by learning the routine involved in the performance of his work, he is cultivating certain brain cells, and when in maturity this certain task becomes a part of his duty, he performs it with ease, if not wholly automatically; so the wear that comes with the acquiring of a new degree of skill in the doing of an unaccustomed work, is avoided, and his maturity rendered at least more comfortable.

The girl who, in childhood, has learned how to perform the daily tasks of the home, finds her introduction into the responsibilities of the housekeeper shorn of many of its terrors.

Manual training in the school is of value in giving dexterity in the use of tools, and so fitting the child to take up any form of labor with ease and pleasure.

“A good time” in the life of the child consists largely in doing. Unguided and undirected, as in his play, this doing is of great educational value; guided and directed, as in some work that is suited to his years and strength, it has a more definite value.

Surely no one will suppose that I am arguing for putting children to the task of routine work, day after day, for the sake of making use of their strength for the benefit of some else. My aim is to indicate that for their own good, their own development, they should receive such training in work at home as will lead out their own powers of mind and body, and teach them the skill and helpfulness which will be of great value to them in maturity. In teaching children to do certain little home duties, we may be lessening the amount of work done by the mother, but helping mother is not our primary object. It is the child’s, not the mother’s, interests we are considering. The actual help given to the mother may not be worth considering, but the spirit of helpfulness engendered is of incalculable value, and its value to the mother herself will be more and more patent as the years go on.—American Mother.