让孩子尝试自己做一些家务

让孩子尝试自己做一些家务

So much of parenting requires risk analysis.

很多育儿工作都需要风险分析。

On one hand, we have the future well-being of our children to consider. If we don't teach them to clean up after themselves, they might grow up to be messy and entitled brats.

一方面，我们要考虑孩子们未来的幸福。如果我们不教他们自己打扫卫生，他们长大后可能会变成邋遢的、自以为是的孩子。

On the other hand, we have the current well-being of us, the parents, to take into account. We are living in the age of burnout.

另一方面，我们要考虑到我们身为父母目前的幸福状况。我们生活在一个筋疲力尽的时代。

There's so much to squeeze into a day (jobs need to be worked, dishes need to be cleaned, stories need to be read, etc). Is it really so wrong to cut the tedious child-led clean-up session out of the daily schedule?

每天都有很多事情要做(做工作，洗盘子，读故事，等等)。把枯燥乏味的孩子清扫工作从每天的日程安排中剔除真的有那么错吗?

The short answer is, absolutely not. With few exceptions, there's no single activity that can make or break our children's characters. Maybe your kids don't clean up their toys, but they do other chores like feeding the dog or setting the table.

简而言之，绝对不是。除了少数例外，没有任何单一的活动可以塑造或破坏我们孩子的性格。也许你的孩子不清理他们的玩具，但他们做其他的家务，如喂狗或摆桌子。

There are oh so many ways to instill a sense of responsibility in our children. If you aren't doing any of them, or if your kid loses it when you make any request, then you have a bigger problem.

在我们的孩子身上灌输责任感的方法有很多。如果你没有做其中的任何一件，或者你的孩子没做好你提出任何要求，那么你的问题就会更大。

Carla Naumburg, said parents need to remember that "it is not their job to teach their children everything."

卡拉·纳姆伯格说，父母们需要记住，“他们的工作并不是把一切交给孩子。”

"We parents expect ourselves to be the teacher, the coach, the therapist, the cook, the judge. Everything! Parents need to trust that other people in their kids' lives are teaching their kids, too," she said, adding that it's fairly common for children to have to clean up after themselves in school.

“我们父母希望自己成为老师、教练、治疗师、厨师和法官。想成为一切!家长们需要相信，孩子们生活中的其他人也在教育孩子，”她补充说，孩子们在学校里自己打扫卫生是相当普遍的。

Daniel Siegel, a child psychologist and co-author of "The Whole-Brain Child" and other parenting books, encourages a quality-over-quantity approach to teaching children responsibility. He wants parents to put their energy into something they have the bandwidth to do and then stick with it.

《全脑儿童》等育儿书籍的作者之一、儿童心理学家丹尼尔·西格尔，他鼓励采用质量高于数量的方法来教孩子负责任。他希望父母们把精力放在他们有能力做的事情上，然后坚持下去。

Adding that parents should think hard about which responsibility lessons feel necessary to them.

西格尔补充说，父母应该认真思考哪些责任课程对他们来说是必要的。

Some issues, like teaching a child not to play with knives, are obviously urgent. Other issues, like a child who doesn't finish his Cheerios every morning, are obviously trivial. It's the ones in the middle, which might include getting your child to clean up after themselves, that can be most challenging to figure out how to handle.

有些问题，比如教孩子不要玩刀，显然是紧急的。其他问题，比如一个孩子每天早上都不吃完他的麦圈，显然是无关紧要的。而处于中间的事情，包括让你的孩子自己打扫卫生，是最难处理的。

"You have to decide, what's the deal?" he said. "If you come to the conclusion that teaching your children to clean up after themselves is important to you, then you have to make the time to do it. If you don't, let it go."

“你必须做出决定，到底要不要做?”他说。“如果你认为教育孩子自己打扫卫生对你来说很重要，那么你就必须腾出时间来做这件事。如果你不喜欢，那就随它去吧。”

Naumburg said she sees a lot of parents getting too ambitious with their lessons and then feeling overwhelmed as a result. For example, when she wanted her daughters to learn to cook, she didn't start with a big, elaborate recipe. Instead, she let them open a bag of frozen broccoli and dump it in a pot.

纳姆伯格说，她看到很多家长在（育儿）功课上过于雄心勃勃，结果感到不堪重负。例如，当她想让她的女儿们学习烹饪时，她不会一开始就准备一个大而复杂的食谱。相反，她让他们打开一袋冷冻西兰花，倒进锅里。

"The truth is, kids learn grit and resilience in small moments, too," she said.

她说:“事实上，孩子们在很小的时候就学会了勇气和适应力。”

If you decide that teaching your kids to clean up their toys is important to you, remember that it's OK to start small. Maybe at the beginning, it's just the dolls in the hallway or the Legos on the table. Maybe they are in charge of putting away 10 things or cleaning up for three minutes -- something I often do with my children -- and then you do the rest.

如果你认为教你的孩子清理玩具对你很重要，记住可以从小的时候着手。也许刚开始的时候，只是走廊里的玩偶或者桌上的乐高玩具。也许他们只负责收起来十件东西，或者清理三分钟——这是我经常和孩子们一起做的事情——然后你来做剩下的事情。

Remember, mess is a subjective concept. Where one person sees "Grey Gardens," another might see Marie Kondo.

记住，混乱是一个主观的概念。一个人看到的是“灰色花园”，另一个人可能看到的是近藤麻理惠。