Kids Helping:

Kids Helping

By Allan Olson

It never seems to fail – when you want your kids to help with something around the house, they always try to get away from it. And then there are those times when you really don’t want them to help . . .

Last weekend, thanks to a malfunctioning dishwasher, I was forced to do dishes the hard way – by hand.

I remember washing dishes as a kid. I never liked it then, and I still don’t like it.

However, it is a necessary evil, so I went ahead with the intent of teaching my oldest son, Nikolai, that part of the eating process involves cleaning up afterward, including washing the dishes.

There were at least a couple of problems in the process. I will take the blame for the first. I wanted to get the job done, and I didn’t want to mess around. Nikolai didn’t really want to help, but knew he had to.

I started washing. Then he decided he wanted to wash instead of rinse. I didn’t have the patience to let him do that process for long. Remember – I wanted to get the job done!

A few sinks-full later, a small dent was made in the day’s dishes from meals and snacks for six or seven people.

Then my helper disappeared. The culprit? The television. He’s drawn to it like a magnet sometimes.

I did another sink or two of dishes, and he was back to help, but not for long. The TV beckoned to him once again from downstairs.

Shortly after his last trip down the stairs, his youngest sister, Alivia, decided to come up and check on dear old dad. Next thing I knew, she was insisting on helping to rinse the dishes.

“I don’t have the patience for this,” I thought, but I took a deep breath and it was, “Away we go!” Besides, how could I really turn away willing help?

Nearly three-quarters through the mountain of dishes, I ask mom to send Nikolai to bed. If he isn’t going to help, he doesn’t get to watch TV, either.

Meanwhile, Alivia is working like a busy bee, and her pajamas are getting wetter with each sinkful.

Soon, Abigail and Marcus are upstairs, too, wanting to help with the process. Ultimately, they ended up putting many of the dishes away after I dried them. There is an old saying that many hands make less work or lighten the load. Well, it was not necessarily true that night, but it was a great way of working together.

As a reward, I looked for an ice cream treat, but there were not enough to go around. Instead, I remembered that I had three quarters and gave them each one, along with a word of praise thanking them for their help. Nikolai, meanwhile, was already sound asleep.

Apparently washing dishes is fun, because the next afternoon, when I foolishly volunteered to do the dishes again, Abigail was right there to help. And not only was she there to help, I was effectively kicked out of the way, since she wanted to do the washing and rinsing.

It was quite entertaining. She stood at the sink, barely tall enough to look over the counter and unable to reach the bottom of the sink. I stood off to one side, monitoring the process and making sure the dishes were still getting clean.

I escaped once, only to be dragged back. “Dad, aren’t you going to watch me?” she pleaded.

Soon both mom and I were watching her with amusement as she struggled to reach the dishes. Neither of us offered to solve the problem for her, so she did it on her own. She walked over to the table and grabbed one of the chairs, only to stumble with it on the way back to her destination. I did come to her rescue, up-righting the chair. She then proceeded to take it the rest of the way to the sink.

In total, she probably worked on the dishes for 30 minutes. The whole time I’m just trying to be patient and not step in to finish the job. At the same time, I was greatly amused at her 110 percent effort.

Eventually I did edge her out (after thanking her) and finished the job myself. She was not bothered by my interference; she gladly moved on to other important things in her life, like her dolls.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great week. We are always looking for feedback and opinions so feel free to drop us a line at cltimes1@arvig.net.

 For more of my columns please visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com.