Contributing to the Success of Others
My twelve year old son William had his first shift of volunteering on Saturday at the Selkirk Waterfront Festival. He spent most of the day handing out waterbottles, putting ballots in ballot boxes and meeting people. Amazing in a boy who still has trouble looking people straight in the eye. He asked me today about volunteering at our local vet clinic, as animals are a deep and lasting passion to him. And as I am suffering around what is the right education for my son, losing sleep over schools, and tutors and special software, I remembered something I had read quite a number of years ago in the Harvard Business Review. It was an article about success and resiliency. Researchers were trying to find common factors that indicated how successful a university graduate would be later in life. Success by definition had its limitations, but they were measuring it around money, job status, and professional satisfaction. What they noted were two very interesting things, one was that resiliency was the number one outstanding feature that all of these "successful" people had. That ability to get up, to make mistakes and learn from them, failing and not throwing in the towel.
The second common factor was even more interesting. There was a direct correlation between how many chores a person had in childhood and how successful they became. In other words, taking on responsibility for chores, for animals, for paper routes had a huge impact in that adults' life course. All this got me thinking quite a bit about my autistic step daughter, and how she will jump up when I ask her to wash the vegetables, or run to the cupboard to get the dog brush, or smile radiantly when she is allowed to help stir fry the vegetables. She loves feeling useful. I saw it in William today, who felt needed, and liked being part of a bigger world than his friends and his schools. He came home walking a little taller, a little more a young man than when he left in the morning.
Children and adults want to feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves, a family, a household, the school culture, a neighbourhood. When we give them responsibilties we let them know they are contributing members of our households. They will mess up, they will forget, or burn things, or dump the crumbs on the floor. Even though it takes time to teach them and to tell what a complete job looks like, they learn; after a few dozen times they might even remember it is easier to do it well the first time!
Sometimes I think our families have become so focussesd on our kids sports, their social lives, and their homework, that we forget about contribution. Contributing to the family, helps a child understand their place and value in the world. They are needed and counted upon. It also helps us stop feeling like such a marytr. Only this morning I found myself getting into a tizzy about the state of my home. I took a deep breath, took out a white board and marker, and made the weekend job list. Suddenly I saw myself as part of the team that is my family. I need my kids to help me make my house a home, I need their positive energy, their personal responsibility and their contributions to the running of the home. I think my kids know they are valuable and I hope this will help make their course in life happy and successful. - Silken
