I do!
Sophie’s at the "I want to do it myself" stage.
She wants to carry her own bag, carry her own umbrella, even help to mop the house etc… And I let her.
But I have a few rules so that I maintain my sanity and also help Sophie learn responsibility: -
1. If you want to bring a bag/dolly/umbrella, you have to carry it yourself. (I’ll take over if she’s napping)
I’m prepared (ok kinda… haven’t tested the full extent of this yet) to leave the item behind if she doesn’t want to carry it halfway and leaves it on the ground in the shopping mall. So far it has worked the past couple of times. If she whines about carrying it, I just tell her you can leave it behind and she’ll guai guai (obediently) carry it. If we have a stroller, I’m ok with leaving the stuff on it.
2. If you need help e.g. wearing/taking off shoes, you just need to ask nicely.
3. When it’s time to let go or job’s done, you need to return the equipment.
I really enjoy watching her become more independent yet I’m not quite rushing her and I’m willing to let her take her time.
It’s so cute how she carries her dolly and bag all the way from home to kor kor Chris’ house. And in the other photo, she’s holding the umbrella for daddy. She also helped me mop the house after A left yesterday. I just told her which areas to clean and let her play a little and when she was done, we kept the mop.
Stuff she’s doing on her own now:
1. Taking off her shoes and putting them back on the shelves, neatly
2. Bringing the plates back to the kitchen sink, more like throw into the sink coz she’s still too short
3. Putting her dirty clothes into the laundry basket
4. Throwing rubbish into the bin…. oh but sometimes, the bin looks very interesting and more things come out of it then it goes in!
(hee… some things that teenagers/adults I know don’t even do at home! I know my mum had a hard time getting me to put shoes onto the shelves! And James always seems to be able to miss the laundry basket!! Argh!)
Looks like I can get her to help around the house more and more when she actually enjoys it! I better make full use of this window before it becomes a chore to her and let her develop the joy of doing it first. I started her on helping to keep her toys too late so now it’s hard to get her to do it but still not too late, I hope! I think there’s always a window of opportunity that occurs naturally out of curiosity and I need to make use of that.