Raising a Child Effectively - Lesson 1

In much the same way that owning a car doesn't make one a car expert, just because I have a child, does not make me an expert in raising children. In fact, I probably know less about raising children than I did before I had children. I guess this explains why there are so many unmarried marriage counsellors (or so I hear).

So what makes me qualified to dispense advice about raising a child? I raised a reasonably well behaved dog. Yup. That's pretty much the extent of my qualifications.

Today's lesson is about:

Teaching Your Child How to Be Tidy
My daughter, Jade, is very good about putting things away. She puts her clothes away, she puts her toys away, she puts the recycling in the recycling and she puts garbage into the garbage. Seriously.

So, how did we teach our daughter these good habits?

Most childcare experts recommend "teaching by example". For most matters, this is a very good approach. For some reason though, this approach is not effective when it comes to tidiness. It sure didn't work on me.

Fawn and I have tried the opposite approach. By letting our house get messier and messier, Jade's cleaning instinct has been triggered. Now she puts things away even if we don't ask her to.

We're very proud of our accomplishment. It means that we live in a pigsty, but we've very proud of what it represents. We can't clean our pigsty, though, because we must be consistent. So if you come to our house and it seems like our cupboards and drawers have vomited their contents, you know the reason why.

Yeah.

In Lesson 2, we'll cover "Home Electronics Repair for Children".

Jade fixes the vacuum.