Ever since O turned six, I've been trying to include chores in her everyday life. One of the first chores that she has to do every single day is putting away dirty plates and wiping down the table after lunch or dinner. We believe kids will only do as much as our expectations go, so we decided for once we'd trust her judgement and let her clean unsupervised. She was ecstatic and boy, did she work so hard that day!
For some reason she had it in her mind that for the table to be clean, it had to be "shiny" and in order to achieve that she had to keep the table thoroughly sprayed and wetted (and keep it wet, too). We sure had a "flood" on the table that day. Ha. ha. ha. Less work for us...not! However, she had so much fun that day, and the satisfaction in seeing the end result of her work was imprinted so strongly in her mind that she will still happily clean the table after every meal. Anyway, I guess that remains to be seen. I'll update you again about her chore attitude once she is a teen. Fingers crossed I brainwash her enough to do her chores with minimal complaints. Until next time and thanks for reading!