Children in the Adult World

From working in a shop and having young cousins I have come to see how all children want is to be part of the adult world and help out. As an adult, the more you fight this, the more the child will become agitated. It doesn't take much effort to let them join in and help you in your daily tasks, and it can even be easier in the longrun. For instance, when we were moving house my three year-old cousin carried out drawers from a chest of drawers to the car, stood on a chair and washed dirty dishes, threw items into the skip, and even helped us in the decision-making in the narrowing down of cutlery.

This was most definitely not child labour, but something that he really wanted to be a part of. He wanted to help us out and he was smart enough to know what he was capable of; if the box was too heavy I would give him an item out of it to carry to the car. This made him happy, and it didn't effect how quickly we got the job done. We let him be part of the entire process and it made him feel useful and part of the group. If we had made him sit in a corner and play with toys that he was not interested in at the time then there most likely would have been tears and tantrums.

Yesterday in the supermarket I work in a child of about three went around the shop with his own child-sized toy trolley and put all of the items in it that his parents wanted. His parents told me that he was saying he was an adult and the other children in his class were kids. As a result of him doing something that is generally an adults' job, he saw himself as that. It changed his perspective of himself and gave him a sense of purpose as he was able to help his parents out.

Children learn from what they see and mimic what the adults and teenagers in their lives' do. So I believe that if we teach them to help out and part-take in our everyday activities from an early age then it might become the natural progression for them into adulthood. Instead of putting them in the child category and only being allowed to do "child" activities, we should embrace their want to do what we do, to a certain extent, and see if it reaps the benefits in their later years.