Setting the Rule of Work before Play
By Natalie J. Hale

Remember being young and there was almost a constant struggle of your wanting to play when there was still homework and/or chores to be done?

Now the tables have turned. Perhaps you still don’t get all your work done, seeing that a homemaker’s work is like unto a never-ending saga. We know that if someone in our family doesn’t get that laundry washed, or bills paid, or meals cooked — or even if we don’t read our scriptures or say our own prayers — that we are going to be pretty miserable.

That takes self-discipline — something you acquired over the years from the teachings of your parents and from your own experience. This same self-discipline is at the root of overcoming the natural man and becoming like God, and it’s essential that we ourselves have it and teach it to our children. They too need to learn the rule of work before play.

What are Things a Toddler Should do for “Work”?

Richard and Linda Eyre wrote:

In the toddler years, children are still probably too young to understand the good feelings received from getting a job done before playing. However, you can use this to your child’s advantage because in his or her little world, everything is play because everything is still so new to him. Even the mere handling of toys with little hands is hard work sometimes, but unless they get very frustrated, you’ll never hear them complain that playing with their toys is hard work. Imagine a little boy trying to stack his blocks, or a girl getting the pages of a book to turn. They think the blocks and books are fun and don’t know that they are developing fine motor skills.

And even more, learning to put those blocks or books away is just as important to their development. What happens now will affect your children well through the teenage years. That is why, as the parent, you must give them a foundation of good work habits while they are still very young and teachable.

To elaborate on the Eyres’ statement, help your children learn self-discipline by giving them simple tasks to do. A great one to start with is cleaning up their own messes. Even though your children won’t be as thorough or fast as you, have them clean up their own toys when they are done playing with them. Now I know this can be a daunting task if your child has a history of scattering every toy in the house all over the place. But there is a solution to that.

Children really need limits, and at this age especially, they are happy to just have a few things to play with at a time. Less truly is more. So give them access to only a few toys by leaving them in a bin or basket where your children can easily to get to them and (get this) can just as easily put them away. The rest of the toys go on a high shelf out of sight, out of mind, and therefore out of temptation. This should give you a handle on the “too many toys to clean up” problem. Let your children know that they don’t get another toy until the others are put away. As you stick to this to this rule, you enforce, even in these very young ages, that there is work to be done before play can continue.

So now that you have the size of the messes under control, and you have a rule to clean up before more toys are brought out, now you have to work on actually getting your children to pick up those toys. This is where the toddler age can be a real joy, because everything is so easily masked as a game.

Make a game picking up the toys and putting them in their respective places by playing music. The point of the game is the clean-up is finished before the music stops. Such is an example of teaching at your child’s level, like Christ does with us. By using methods like this, you can build up the child’s confidence in his own abilities (even if he doesn’t recognize or understand it) in a fun and entertaining way.

There are some do’s and don’ts of teaching self-discipline as Elder Marvin J. Ashton counseled:

This month is self-discipline month at enlightenedhomemaker.com. Each weekly issue of the Parenting Tip will address various elements of discipline and what parents can do to teach it. Each issue contains a quote from a prophet and a corresponding quote from a non-prophetic, but recognized expert, in the parenting field.

The purpose of this weekly tip is to give homemakers an added resource to encourage them in their choice to be a homemaker, and give them prophetic and professional solutions to their parenting needs. This is not an attempt intended to mingle philosophies of men with scripture, but rather, as a source that shows where the world agrees with the Lord’s principles. Such a combination can be especially valuable if you have nonmember family or friends. This newsletter is free and available at http://www.EnlightenedHomemaker.com