How To Get Kids To Be Helpful

“We parents tend to make two mistakes regarding our little children’s desires to help. First, we brush their offers to help aside, because we are in a rush to get things done and we believe (often correctly) that the toddler’s “help” will slow us down or the toddler won’t do it right and we’ll have to do it over again. Second, if we do actually want help from the child, we offer some sort of deal, some reward, for doing it. In the first case, we present the message to the child that he or she is not capable of helping; and in the second case, we present the message that helping is something a person will do only if they get something in return.” (Gray, P. (2018). Toddlers Want to Help and We Should Let Them. Psychology Today)

✨Value his work

I don’t want him to think his help is pointless if I’m just going to re-do it. Do screws need tightening more than a toddler can? Yes! But I wait until he’s done rather than taking over.

✨Invite him to join

Don’t force it - toddlers love to help!

Experimenters allowed toddlers to play. Across a barrier they “accidentally” dropped something and tried to reach it. Almost every child came over and gave it back. (Warneken F., Tomasello M. (2009). The roots of human altruism. British Journal of Psychology)

✨Limit praise

Giving a reward reduces helping later on. Researches allowed toddlers to help with tasks, and either rewarded them, or not. Then they allowed the children to help again. Of the children who had been rewarded, only 53% of them helped again. 89% of the children who hadn’t been rewarded wanted to help. (Warneken F., Tomasello M. (2008). Extrinsic rewards undermine altruistic tendencies in 20-month-olds. Developmental Psychology).

Think praise is different than tangible rewards?

Researchers praised half the kids for drawing (an activity they enjoyed). The group that had been praised showed little interest in drawing again. The group who hadn’t been praised continued as before. (Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. E. (1973). Undermining children's intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology)

“Thank you” is enough :) 

✨Set clear boundaries

Some things are a “mama job” and most things can be an “Owen job”. I really think through worse-case scenarios before saying he can’t do something.