Kids and Responsibility continued...

My first thought when my daughter was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at the age of thirteen was, that she would be dependent on me to take care of her for the rest of her life. I was scared that if anything happened to me and her Father she would end up in an institution or something worse. How wrong I was! Once I started doing research on Autism Spectrum Disorders I realized that the majority of these children can learn with the proper teaching to be very independent and some even get married and raise families of their own. How wonderful to find out that my daughter's future was not going to be as dismal as I first thought.

I have found that with my daughter she has the ability to learn how to do many things and although some things are more of a struggle than others, she can be taught. She has become quite a little cook and her recipe repertoire is quite extensive. While she still has to be supervised for her own safety, I know that in the very near future she will be very capable of preparing meals all on her own. I noticed straight away that my confidence in her abilities and my encouraging her to try new and challenging things only added to her self esteem and her own realization that she was actually a very capable young lady. By allowing her to make mistakes without too much intervention she was becoming more and more independent and I had to do less and less for her. Had I not allowed her to make mistakes, she never would have realized her potential. Now if I could just get her to keep her room clean. :- ) Oh well I guess we can't have it all.

Happy Parenting,

Monicka

The Joy of Cleaning????

Happy Wednesday Everyone

Yesterday was my birthday and my children being the loving little souls that they are, decided that they would do a few chores for Mom without grumbling as part of my birthday gift. I watched as they eagerly walked the dog without being asked, and a few other household duties that they would normally do if asked three or four times; but there would always be a lot of complaining and they would take their sweet time completing them. Funny how when they did it out of love it was a whole different story.

How then do we get our children to be responsible? Chores are something that all children need to learn to do in order to become well-rounded adults. It is unthinkable to send them off into the world when they don't even know how to do their own laundry or cook a simple meal. So by not teaching them and doing it for them, we are doing them a great disservice.

Today I am going to try a new tactic. Both my children are on spring break for the next week and since they will be home all day it is the perfect time for a bit of a shake up in the Gregory household. I know they are very capable individuals; they just sometimes need a little bit of gentle persuasion. ;-)

I truly believe that if you make chores fun children are more apt to want to do them. With that in mind, I am going to show my children just how much fun cleaning can be. I will keep you posted on how my little experiment goes. Until then….

Happy Parenting
Monicka