Oh No, My Dad Is a Project Manager!

Children at these ages will learn only to be compliant, or perhaps extrinsically motivated, but certainly not personally or socially responsible, using these “child-rearing approaches”. The family is not a system analogous to a project, and parents who see it as such may be doing their children and their relationships to them some harm. Assigning “chores” to children will not teach them to be “responsible adults.” Instead, it will encourage them to over-cooperate, and to learn how not to take care of themselves. Instead of developing their personal language, the children seem to have learned to relate to their parents from a position of powerlessness–not exactly a great model for adulthood, or project management either, for that matter. The fact that Maddy and Tripp are now “tough negotiators” shows that they have learned, at perhaps too early an age, that their feelings and interests don’t matter, at least as far as getting an allowance is concerned…it’s contingent upon doing chores. How about giving them an allowance unconditionally? And how about giving them the choice of doing chores, perhaps, if on a situation by situation basis, they choose to do them? That would nurture social responsibility, not at the expense of their own needs, but in alignment with them.

Imagine if one spouse used an Allowance Compliance Matrix with the other? Well, the same is true for children. You can read “Your Competent Child” by Jesper Juul for more. Yes, the author’s intuiton is correct. This approach does not encourage “regimentation”–it teaches over-compliance, and with it, unhealthy results for children, families, and relationships. Ultimately, society reaps the consequences of such ideas.

Yeah, that’s it. Give the children an allowance unconditionally and let them do chores if they decide to do them. Then, please consider adopting me.

The first comment is WAY off base. Love should be given to children unconditionally, but not money. This is not a labor camp. These kids are provided with food, clothing, and shelter (and no doubt many other things). Allowances are given to kids so they can buy their own luxury items like candy and games. Through allowances, parents can teach children fiscal responsibility and money management. Many also learn social responsibility by donating part of their allowance at Sunday school.
One important lesson they need to learn is that luxuries do not come for free. You need to earn them and that takes work and sacrifice. Providing kids with an allowance with no expectations is just training them for a future life on welfare.

Ananda, you make a few points, and I’d like to respond to each of them. First, you mention that children will only learn to be compliant, but not personally or socially responsible. Please refer to the blog post where “Bubba Bucks” are mentioned. These rewards are specifically for those social and personal responsibilities come into play. He’s rewarding his children on good attitude and good grades – not just on household chores. A well-rounded child will not only be capable at household tasks, but good natured and do well in school.

Second, you said that assigning chores does not teach children to be responsible adults but instead they will learn how not to take care of themselves. I’m confused. Are you saying that in the thousands of years in which children have been required to help with the family household, we have not produced adults who can take care of themselves? I would have to disagree. In fact, think of those children in history. Children were brought up with many more responsibilities than our Nintendo-playing youth of today. Would you not agree that society has been more productive on the whole in history rather than today? If you don’t agree, I urge you to look up welfare statistics, crime rates and the percentage of people who are homeless. I would bet that all these have risen with time because children are no longer receiving strict guidelines at home that would produce responsible adults. Out of curiosity, what do you propose parents do to teach children to be responsible adults if not assign them chores and request good attitude and good grades? I’m genuinely curious.

Your third point is that you don’t believe Maddy and Tripp feel as though their feelings and interests don’t matter to their father, just metrics. The way the blog author writes, the children are not so interested in whether or not their father loves them so much as asking intelligent questions about specifics of the task they were assigned. I would ask you to think of their future in the workforce. Would you rather have a coworker walking around wanting to be appreciated (loved) and paid for who they are, or dutiful in their work by asking questions about what specifically needs to be done? None of those bullet points ask “Will Mom and Dad still provide a roof over my head if I forget to make my bed?”

The final point I extracted from your response was the same one that Tom narrowed in on. I feel like I’d be repeating myself by asking you to think of their future. If we desire to increase the number of people in this nation who expect to get paid regularly with the condition of working if “they choose to” then we are going to be in for a very rough future.

the article is interesting an for those who do manage projects or people is appealing since we can still stay in our comfort zone.
But I have learned with my children so much about people and management that sometime I feel they are my trainers.
The article is focused on a reward policy, and I think for some very minor aspects may be useful, but what about respect and trust and doin things just becuse needs to be done, no money as reward.
I think the first comment is related to this aspect.