Lazy Little Sloths

I have to admit, despite all their good qualities, my three can be lazy little sloths.

Many kids these days are handed everything on a plate – which is then abandoned where they ate - and when asked to do a chore, it is meet with strong, protests of indignation.

It recently occurred to me that I was run off my feet doing all the chores while the kids were firing demands at me and, if they just helped me out, they would get their demands met quicker.

I pointed this out to them: They decided they would rather wait.

Suddenly I realised what I was doing: by carrying out everything for them I was inadvertently raising little sloths, thereby setting them up to expect everything to be done for them as adults. This would not be doing their future relationships any favours.

“Look, in the olden days, kids used to brave the icy cold and go and milk cows to have the milk to pour on their cereal,” I pointed out, but they just looked like they didn’t believe me and continued spooning Light n Tasty into their mouths.

It was time to introduce pocket money.

We started small – one had the task of carrying in the firewood, while the others shared the dishes.

It’s amazing what a bit of incentive can do – suddenly they were begging me to do the dishes. Trouble was, I found it hard handing over the reins and watching big puddles of water dripped across the kitchen floor and plates and cutlery declared clean when they were still smeared with Marmite and tomato sauce. Then there was the trail of bark from the door to the fire place.

But the problem with introducing rewards into the mix is you never know when they are doing things to be helpful or for an ulterior motive.

Master Five suddenly became really helpful that week. He went above the call of duty and on a mad cleaning frenzy. Cloth in hand, he ‘polished’ the whole house, including stair banisters and cupboard doors.

“This is a bit hard to get off,” he declared before marching over to the sink and wetting the cloth.

“Why are you cleaning the house?” his big bro asked warily, glancing up from the ipad.

“Because it’s all rusty,” he replied.

I didn’t know we had a rust problem in the house but the jury was still out on whether it was now cleaner than before he began.

“Mum, he’s just cleaning the house because he wants money,” Master Eight said in a knowing tone.

“No I’m not!,” Master Five protested. “I’m just being helpful aye mum?”

If he wasn’t before, he would be now, in a bid to prove his big bro wrong. But as I reluctantly watched him smear the now liquefied dust – or was it rust - across the glass window of the relatively clean ranch slider, I wondered if I should just let them be lazy sloths a little longer.