A Child’s Work Ethic?
A Child’s Work Ethic?
I was recently asked the question, “How do I help my kids develop a strong work ethic?”.
It seems somewhat straightforward, but sitting with this question showed me how complex it actually is. I did have some practical advice that addressed this parents’ concern, but I had to point out the basic assumption of the question: that there is such a thing as “strong work ethic,” or that kids “learn” to work hard.
This assumption is not scientific, but moral in nature. And I cannot judge how moral/spiritual someone is, and most people don’t believe in judging others like that either. For example:
Does a surgeon who works 80 hours a week, but neglects his wife and kids, have a “strong work ethic”?
Does a teenager who develops ulcers and migraines to keep perfect grades to avoid criticism from perfectionistic parents have a “strong work ethic”?
Does a depressed mom who used all the energy she had to just get out of bed have a “poor work ethic”?
My answer: I don’t know, and I can’t judge that.
But what I can attempt to discern are scientific/observable factors contributing to the symptom, and how to change things to produce better outcomes.
For example, if my 5 year old son is to clean his room, he will need a reason to do so that he cares about. He doesn’t care about the potential for losing things in a messy room (his 5 year old brain can’t comprehend the future like that). He doesn’t get any satisfaction from organizing–he prefers to have all his stuff in the open where he can see it. He doesn’t care about smells or germs–he’s not a germaphobe like me, and that’s probably a good thing. I don't know if there is something inherently moral or righteous about having a clean room, but even if there was, children don’t develop moral reasoning until later childhood (ages 7-9-ish).
So, I can make him afraid of consequences for NOT cleaning his room (spanking, getting yelled at, criticism/shaming, etc.), which might work for a while, but will traumatize him and give us other problems later on. I don’t want to do that. And there are few behaviors I need from him urgently enough to give him an anxiety disorder over (no life/death situations).
What can I do then? First, I need to determine why I want him to clean his room. Is it to appease my anxiety about having a messy house? Is it to appease my mother-in-law? Or is it to teach him to be a “hard worker” (which we’ve established to be an ill-defined trait at best)? I must determine whether my motivation for a clean room is something to impose on my child.
Perhaps I determine that I want his room clean because the hunt for clean clothes in there is causing annoying delays in our day. Again, he doesn’t care about my adult anxiety to keep a tight schedule (and I don’t want him to), so that won’t convince him. But he does care about Skittles and TV time. So, I offer him 10 Skittles for picking up his room, and 0 for not picking up his room, and he can choose without fear of rebuke. If he is in a low-stress state, the Skittles will be appealing enough to do a quick clean up. If not, he’s allowed to say No and have no Skittles.
Or, I offer him extra TV time. Again, he can say No without fear of punishment. If extra TV isn’t important to him on a particular day, that’s ok. He also has his given hour of TV every day during the baby’s nap, but that’s also my Me Time. I would not want to leverage that for chores or as a consequence for rule breaking unless I was willing to give that up. And I usually am not.
The principle here is simple: people will do what is relevant to their needs, and we have no right to judge that for them. If we want children to work, we need to find what motivates them. If we try to impose our adult motivation, we set them up for failure and mental illness.
We can gauge motivation by looking at a child’s developmental level (e.g., “What’s important to a 13 year old?”) and their emotional state (using the 3-part brain model):
-Calm/Logic: Kids in this state want to learn, challenge themselves, develop morals, and build relationships. They can easily do non-essential tasks (get good grades, extra-curriculars, service projects).
-Fight/Flight: Anxious kids in this state are doing just enough to survive and feel ok, often using short-term coping. They care about passing, not getting straight A’s (unless failure to get A’s means criticism/nagging from parents). They can perform essential tasks (going to school) and coping tasks (playing video games, being with friends), but have difficulty with non-essential tasks (homework, cleaning their room).
-Freeze: These kids are depressed. They have little access to their learning/logic, and mostly want to check-out/sleep/be alone. They cannot perform non-essential tasks (they can’t do homework or chores), have difficulty with essential tasks (skipping or going late to school), and can pretty much only use coping behaviors or do nothing.
If the rewards and consequences are relevant for kids at the particular age and emotional state, then they will “work hard”. If not, they won’t. For example:
-A Calm/Logical 12 year old will take $20 to mow the lawn, but not a healthy 5 year old who doesn’t care about money and isn’t strong enough, and not a depressed 12 year old who doesn’t care about anything.
-An anxious 14 year old will do the bare minimum on homework to not get their phone or video games taken away, but a depressed 14 year old doesn’t care.
-Only threats against food, water, shelter, or bodily safety can effectively motivate a depressed child to do anything that isn’t essential, because threatening basic needs can make ANYTHING essential. However, these kinds of threats shouldn’t exist except in life/death situations, unless we want our kids to develop personality disorders.
We also don’t want to leverage our relationship with our kids to get them to do things, such as through yelling, spanking, family outings, guilting, criticism, or ignoring. This generates anxiety and depression because, for humans, the parental relationship is a basic need.
If a child is not generally in a calm/logical state, we should determine whether we want to focus on setting consequences for behaviors, or helping them come out of their Fight/Flight/Freeze state, or a strategic combination of both. We should especially be mindful if our methods are perpetuating the emotional distress (such as by leveraging relationships).
For more on boundaries and gauging emotional states, see the Steps Booklet.
* Some may be concerned that this approach may be coddling, or perhaps not preparing kids for the “real world.” This feeling makes sense, since many jobs, educational opportunities, or other adult scenarios include much more intense or rigid consequences for doing or not doing things, and we want our kids to be able to handle hard things.
I argue that, having a safe home environment where basic needs are provided for, relationships are not threatened, and mistakes are allowed to happen, will set kids up better for the real world. When we know we have a safe place to return to, it’s easier to take risks in the real world. When we learn from our parents that we don’t deserve to be shamed/yelled at/exploited, we are more likely to stand up for ourselves in toxic work environments and seek change, rather than submit to abuse. We have more room to adapt to hard situations, rather than be overwhelmed by them, if we don’t have trauma from home holding us back.
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