Exactly! My partner sorts out all my children's birthday party logistics and he's less culturally bound than I am, so on the way to the party, they go to a shop and buy a selection of fruit. I was skeptical at first but even other people's children seem to love the sense of abundance that the gift provides!
I loved this article, Guen. Thank you for writing it. My wife and I read Hunt, Gather, Parent when our oldest son was one and it completely changed the way we parent. It seems amazing what children can do when they are allowed to contribute and learn how to do helpful tasks, but really it's just shocking here in the US because you see it so infrequently. People are astonished when our 18 month old cleans scrapes his plate and puts it in the dishwasher or our 3-year old cracks eggs, scrambles them, and pours them in a pan. I'm not bragging—as you said, these types of things should not be optional skills. They are essential.
The callouts to specific audiences was helpful too—I'll send this to our parents as ammunition in my fight against crap plastic toys as gifts.
It's such a great book, isn't it?! And it pays off so much as they get older because they start to be very important parts of the family system - net contributors rather than net consumers. My oldest is 7 and already lots of her classmates have mental health issues. But it must be so hard to feel good about yourself when you have no purpose in your family, other than to go away and play. My older two are 5 and 7 and they now make dinner unsupervised two nights a week, and they are so proud of what they make. They tell us happily about the mistakes they made and how they sorted them out. The biggest hurdle we've found is facing our own fears and cultural beliefs.
Amazing. I am looking forward to them getting older and seeing how they can progress like your children. I find the hardest part is fighting against the entrenched parenting norms in our society. Especially with grandparents, and sometimes even my wife. It's exhausting to have to fight to include children in tasks and fend off useless toys. But alas, the rewards to our children are more than worthwhile!
Yeah it is really tricky. Sometimes parents' social identities become bound up in how much they do for their children. But with facilitation, the children become more motivated and better able to communicate and they become their own advocates. Such an exciting journey!
You are so right. For years I helped run a nature preschool, and kids were so happy simply playing in the mud, making “soup” and creating little houses out of sand and chasing bugs with sticks. It really made me realize how kids don’t need all the toys and adult intervention to learn, play and grow.
I’m 60. I don’t remember having any toys when I was a child, although I’m sure I did. What I do remember is being outdoors. Alone with my dog, or with friends and from a very, very young age. I remember making passages and dens through cow parsley so much taller than I, and with old apple crates used to build tunnels and secret passages. I remember spending hours and hours in the woods. I remember the smell of daffodils, the carpets of blue bells and snowdrops. Climbing the tallest trees to the top. I remember hunting for violets in the deepest of ditches, stealing eggs from nests to add to my collection. Feeding the local ponies and getting electric shocks from the wire around fields of cows and I remember picking wild mushrooms to eat for breakfast along with the plums and apples we ‘scrumped.’ Fishing for sticklebacks and newts. Collecting frogspawn by the bucket load and wild swimming. All without an adult in sight and completely unsupervised. To this day, I doubt my parents know about half of what I got up too. Or do they?
So many wonderful memories from my child hood. Too many to list but I can’t remember any toys! Screen time? Well occasionally I watched ‘Tales Along the Riverbank’ on a black and white tv!
It’s not that long ago, but wow! How things have changed.
My wish is that all children get to experience just a little of what I experienced as a child. I suspect many children won’t and the consequences will be huge. 😔
Ah what an incredibly evocative piece! I'm going to reshare it because I doubt there are many in my generation who are fortunate to have the experiences you describe.
On the other side of infantalization, we expect a lot of infants. Personally I feel that giving children age appropriate responsibilities only works if you nurture their baby sides as well. In cultures where three year olds use knives, they also tend to breastfeed.
Yeah, great point. I refer you to the story at the start of this post! https://guenbradbury.substack.com/p/biting-off-less-than-we-can-chew People weren't surprised at an older breastfeeding baby (I was still breastfeeding my four year old at the time, our insurance policy against against traveller's diarrhea), but they were very surprised that a white woman would do so....
Yes I loved that article! Though it dashed my hopes of coasting on my partner's genetically perfect asian teeth... it also gives me an excuse to let the baby gnaw on soup bones. (In all seriousness it's very comforting to learn how much our bodies are in conversation with our environments.)
It is, isn't it!! I find that so exciting as well. I think it's easy to feel despondent, but actually I continue to be amazed by just how much bodies can adapt and change at any age. It's just a bit easier in childhood! :D
(Probably due to a variety of cross-cultural experiences + a love of 19th century literature) I tend to operate outside of my community's cultural norm when it comes to the amount of freedom and the amount of responsibility we give our kids. To me it seems obvious that it's wise to give them as much of both as they can handle but I do realize that it's the "as they can handle" part that's tricky. It can be hard for people to know what their kids can truly handle when society is sending the message that kids can barely do anything and competency starts in college.
My 7-year-old has asked for the responsibility of tending to our wood stove that heats our house. If my husband and I had to be gone, he could manage it independently indefinitely. (Although, being 7, he'd likely forget and let it go out and only remember once he was nice and chilly inside the house.) This is not the norm in the PNW city where I live. Most kids aren't handling fire or cooking independently. But I think most kids could!
Thanks for this interesting reflection on how we tend to limit our kids' competence.
What a great task for a seven-year-old! He clearly has not only the skills but also a feeling of self-efficacy - he believes he is able to. And that feeling is so important to help a child feel that the world is something they can influence.
That "competency starts in college" belief phrase is very pithy - I love it!
I haven’t read the book but from observations from my own children is that from a young age they want to contribute towards and feel part of the family and social unit.
Yeah absolutely. But that doesn't last forever, as friends and potential partners become more motivating. It's so important to teach children at the time they are most motivated to learn...
I read this article a while ago and the idea of a single induction hob seemed genius. My kids always want to help make dinner and I'm happy to let them get involved but boiling liquids at near-head height never seemed a good idea. My youngest son turned 6 last week and so we got him a single induction hob and safety glasses. The following day he made (with a bit of help) one pot tomato pasta for the whole family and proudly served everyone. Now his brothers want a turn too. Thanks for the inspiration!
YAY! You're the first person I know who has done the same, and I'm so delighted to hear that your son was able to do that! I found it so life changing - just changing the height meant they could do so much more.
I struggle to implement this idea with my 2-year-old and while I love the thought of "raising an adult" bu teaching him skills to help him within the family, I find myself undone by the screaming and crying when we take away a toy or turn off a screen. I guess, the answer is for me to keep trying.
It is always tricky to take things away. We have a small hamper where all toys go and we have a projector rather than a TV. Now the children are older, if the hamper gets full, they decide what is given away, because that's the toy limit. Similarly, the projector is a faff to turn on, and there is nothing but a wall when it isn't, so it's not top of mind. For little ones, we found that if things weren't visible, then they weren't really considered. Not sure if I've answered your question, but hope it helps a little!
It does, Guen :) your example makes me think about helping my little guy make choices -- so, maybe keeping the toys out of sight or TV off when we're mixing eggs for breakfast. Something like that.
"Give them a whole watermelon."
Why have I never considered this. What a glorious, extravagant, transient gift for a four year old!
Exactly! My partner sorts out all my children's birthday party logistics and he's less culturally bound than I am, so on the way to the party, they go to a shop and buy a selection of fruit. I was skeptical at first but even other people's children seem to love the sense of abundance that the gift provides!
I loved this article, Guen. Thank you for writing it. My wife and I read Hunt, Gather, Parent when our oldest son was one and it completely changed the way we parent. It seems amazing what children can do when they are allowed to contribute and learn how to do helpful tasks, but really it's just shocking here in the US because you see it so infrequently. People are astonished when our 18 month old cleans scrapes his plate and puts it in the dishwasher or our 3-year old cracks eggs, scrambles them, and pours them in a pan. I'm not bragging—as you said, these types of things should not be optional skills. They are essential.
The callouts to specific audiences was helpful too—I'll send this to our parents as ammunition in my fight against crap plastic toys as gifts.
It's such a great book, isn't it?! And it pays off so much as they get older because they start to be very important parts of the family system - net contributors rather than net consumers. My oldest is 7 and already lots of her classmates have mental health issues. But it must be so hard to feel good about yourself when you have no purpose in your family, other than to go away and play. My older two are 5 and 7 and they now make dinner unsupervised two nights a week, and they are so proud of what they make. They tell us happily about the mistakes they made and how they sorted them out. The biggest hurdle we've found is facing our own fears and cultural beliefs.
Amazing. I am looking forward to them getting older and seeing how they can progress like your children. I find the hardest part is fighting against the entrenched parenting norms in our society. Especially with grandparents, and sometimes even my wife. It's exhausting to have to fight to include children in tasks and fend off useless toys. But alas, the rewards to our children are more than worthwhile!
Yeah it is really tricky. Sometimes parents' social identities become bound up in how much they do for their children. But with facilitation, the children become more motivated and better able to communicate and they become their own advocates. Such an exciting journey!
You are so right. For years I helped run a nature preschool, and kids were so happy simply playing in the mud, making “soup” and creating little houses out of sand and chasing bugs with sticks. It really made me realize how kids don’t need all the toys and adult intervention to learn, play and grow.
A nature preschool sounds amazing... So fantastic to give children the chance to learn these skills of self entertainment. :)
What a great article!
I’m 60. I don’t remember having any toys when I was a child, although I’m sure I did. What I do remember is being outdoors. Alone with my dog, or with friends and from a very, very young age. I remember making passages and dens through cow parsley so much taller than I, and with old apple crates used to build tunnels and secret passages. I remember spending hours and hours in the woods. I remember the smell of daffodils, the carpets of blue bells and snowdrops. Climbing the tallest trees to the top. I remember hunting for violets in the deepest of ditches, stealing eggs from nests to add to my collection. Feeding the local ponies and getting electric shocks from the wire around fields of cows and I remember picking wild mushrooms to eat for breakfast along with the plums and apples we ‘scrumped.’ Fishing for sticklebacks and newts. Collecting frogspawn by the bucket load and wild swimming. All without an adult in sight and completely unsupervised. To this day, I doubt my parents know about half of what I got up too. Or do they?
So many wonderful memories from my child hood. Too many to list but I can’t remember any toys! Screen time? Well occasionally I watched ‘Tales Along the Riverbank’ on a black and white tv!
It’s not that long ago, but wow! How things have changed.
My wish is that all children get to experience just a little of what I experienced as a child. I suspect many children won’t and the consequences will be huge. 😔
Ah what an incredibly evocative piece! I'm going to reshare it because I doubt there are many in my generation who are fortunate to have the experiences you describe.
Out of curiosity - where did you grow up?
Thank you so much for sharing, Sarah!
On the other side of infantalization, we expect a lot of infants. Personally I feel that giving children age appropriate responsibilities only works if you nurture their baby sides as well. In cultures where three year olds use knives, they also tend to breastfeed.
Yeah, great point. I refer you to the story at the start of this post! https://guenbradbury.substack.com/p/biting-off-less-than-we-can-chew People weren't surprised at an older breastfeeding baby (I was still breastfeeding my four year old at the time, our insurance policy against against traveller's diarrhea), but they were very surprised that a white woman would do so....
Yes I loved that article! Though it dashed my hopes of coasting on my partner's genetically perfect asian teeth... it also gives me an excuse to let the baby gnaw on soup bones. (In all seriousness it's very comforting to learn how much our bodies are in conversation with our environments.)
It is, isn't it!! I find that so exciting as well. I think it's easy to feel despondent, but actually I continue to be amazed by just how much bodies can adapt and change at any age. It's just a bit easier in childhood! :D
(Probably due to a variety of cross-cultural experiences + a love of 19th century literature) I tend to operate outside of my community's cultural norm when it comes to the amount of freedom and the amount of responsibility we give our kids. To me it seems obvious that it's wise to give them as much of both as they can handle but I do realize that it's the "as they can handle" part that's tricky. It can be hard for people to know what their kids can truly handle when society is sending the message that kids can barely do anything and competency starts in college.
My 7-year-old has asked for the responsibility of tending to our wood stove that heats our house. If my husband and I had to be gone, he could manage it independently indefinitely. (Although, being 7, he'd likely forget and let it go out and only remember once he was nice and chilly inside the house.) This is not the norm in the PNW city where I live. Most kids aren't handling fire or cooking independently. But I think most kids could!
Thanks for this interesting reflection on how we tend to limit our kids' competence.
What a great task for a seven-year-old! He clearly has not only the skills but also a feeling of self-efficacy - he believes he is able to. And that feeling is so important to help a child feel that the world is something they can influence.
That "competency starts in college" belief phrase is very pithy - I love it!
I haven’t read the book but from observations from my own children is that from a young age they want to contribute towards and feel part of the family and social unit.
Yeah absolutely. But that doesn't last forever, as friends and potential partners become more motivating. It's so important to teach children at the time they are most motivated to learn...
I read this article a while ago and the idea of a single induction hob seemed genius. My kids always want to help make dinner and I'm happy to let them get involved but boiling liquids at near-head height never seemed a good idea. My youngest son turned 6 last week and so we got him a single induction hob and safety glasses. The following day he made (with a bit of help) one pot tomato pasta for the whole family and proudly served everyone. Now his brothers want a turn too. Thanks for the inspiration!
YAY! You're the first person I know who has done the same, and I'm so delighted to hear that your son was able to do that! I found it so life changing - just changing the height meant they could do so much more.
I struggle to implement this idea with my 2-year-old and while I love the thought of "raising an adult" bu teaching him skills to help him within the family, I find myself undone by the screaming and crying when we take away a toy or turn off a screen. I guess, the answer is for me to keep trying.
It is always tricky to take things away. We have a small hamper where all toys go and we have a projector rather than a TV. Now the children are older, if the hamper gets full, they decide what is given away, because that's the toy limit. Similarly, the projector is a faff to turn on, and there is nothing but a wall when it isn't, so it's not top of mind. For little ones, we found that if things weren't visible, then they weren't really considered. Not sure if I've answered your question, but hope it helps a little!
It does, Guen :) your example makes me think about helping my little guy make choices -- so, maybe keeping the toys out of sight or TV off when we're mixing eggs for breakfast. Something like that.
Exactly 😊