Developing a Servants Heart

I have this friend. We'll call her Sarah. Sarah doesn't like her kids to do chores or help out around the house because they take it's too long to do the work. She can complete it much faster and it's exactly the way she wants it. She doesn't like her kids to do chores because they don't do things the way she would do them. She doesn't understand why the kids are so demanding of her and why the show no respect for anything. 

Sarah is tired, run ragged and over worked. And it's Sarah's own fault. 

Oh, Sarah tried to get her kids to do chores several times. She would print out these cute little chore charts and put them on the fridge, all ready to be gold starred for the chores the kids had completed. Only....they never completed any. The kids found out that Sarah would do the chores for them if they left them long enough and ignored her pestering. 

You see, Sarah didn't start trying to assign chores until her kids were older, 13 and 15 to be exact, and by that time they just weren't going to do them. Their mom had been their chef, housekeeper, laundress and chauffeur for far to long for them to change their ways. It was too hard to do the chores and too easy to let them go long enough for Sarah to just do them herself. 

The thing about kids and chores is that they have to do them FROM THE START, from the time they are small enough to follow a simple instruction. When you baby/toddler is old enough to pick up a toy and put it into a basket, they are old enough to help you pick up toys and put them away. The learning cannot stop there. You must continue to mold the heart of the child to helpfulness and servitude. And no, I don't mean being a doorstop or a servant, but rather to have a servants heart- to want to help, to bless others and to do more for the greater good of the household with a willing and loving heart. 

Age appropriate chores are going to depend on your child. Only you know what your child is capable of, but never stop teaching them to be helpful. Always encourage your child and continue to teach them how to do a job properly. And for goodness sake, don't just give them orders and expect your child to complete the task exactly how you would do it and in lightening fast time. Show them, time and time again, how the chore should be completed until it becomes second nature. I read somewhere that it takes an adult around 2 weeks to add a new item to a routine before it becomes easy for them to remember to do it. Why would we expect a child to do something the first time, all the time and perfectly well? We are setting the child, and ourselves, up for failure. 

There are a lot of reasons I'm writing this today. For my friend Sarah, for myself and for you. We have been dealing with a lot of these issues that stemmed from a mother not caring enough about her child to teach him to be responsible. The results are less then desirable. They can't see what needs to be done and chip in because they don't know how. They never learned how to chip in, they don't follow directions well and they don't have a servants heart. And it makes things hard for the whole family. 

When all of the spokes in a wheel are lined up perfectly, the wheel turns smoothly. When one of the spokes is bent, the wheel wobbles out of control. Nothing will make the wheel turn smoothly, to get to it's destination without a lot of twists and turns. Don't let your wheels wobble. But most importantly, cultivate a servants heart of your own so that you set the example. Loving your kids doesn't mean being their doormat and at their beck and call. It means teaching them to be responsible, trustworthy and honest. It means teaching them that the act of helping IS love. It means taking the time, again and again, to show them how something is done even if you could have had it done 20 times over by the time they are done. It means putting in countless hours of time an effort. 

Don't be like Sarah.