Family Work

Work is a word most kids run, hide or slink away from. But this is the perfect time for family relationships to be strengthened and values taught. Talk to your kids about the life skills these opportunities bring and how they will strengthen your relationships with each other and your future spouses.

Quotes:


Gordon B. Hinckley listed families working together as one of four things that could “in a generation of two” turn society’s “moral values” around.

President Kimball: “I hope that we understand that, while having a garden, for instance, is often useful in reducing food costs and making available delicious fresh fruits and vegetables, it does much more than this. Who can gauge the value of that special chat between daughter and a Dad as they weed or water the garden? … And how do we measure the family togetherness and cooperating that must accompany successful canning?”

Grace Weinstein cautions: “… you should think long and hard about introducing money as a motivational force. Money distorts family feeling and weakens the members’ mutual support.” 

Henry B. Eyring has promised that if we seek opportunities to work in behalf of others, “the Atonement working in our lives will produce in us the love and tenderness we need.”

  

Children can learn to take responsibility for family work. To insist that children help when they would rather do their own thing does not damage self-esteem; it aids the discovery of true worth. Such insistence says, “I need you. You are an essential member of our family. We cannot get along without you or your help.”

Children learn to care for others by doing work that helps them think about others.

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Jeannette Batz: “What I learned convinced me that the chores I’d branded oppressive and mundane are creative and profound, bringing us closer to the earth, to each other and to God. At least, that’s true when they’re done with love. Freshly laundered sheets tucked with care can symbolize and reinforce family stability, keeping home a haven from a cold, confusing world. The same sheets, stained and crumpled and flung angrily across the bed, can undermine that security.”

School-aged children who do chores with their fathers are more likely to get along with their peers and have more friends, and they are less likely to disobey teachers, make trouble at school, or be depressed or withdrawn. 

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