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How to Get Kids to Do Chores: Does the Maya Method Work?

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233 points Xcelerate | 4 comments | 04 Sep 18 00:03 UTC | HN request time: 0.688s | source
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rayiner ◴[04 Sep 18 00:45 UTC] No.17905800[source]▶
This isn’t Mayan “supermom” magic. Kids all over the world (including the US) do manual labor around the house/farm. Kids who don’t earn their keep are a relatively new invention.

(I’m probably the first child in my family line to not work growing up. Most Americans probably are not more than a generation or two removed from that.)

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addicted ◴[04 Sep 18 02:44 UTC] No.17906245[source]▶
Except this concept appears to be about making chores fun for kids before they can even do those chores properly.

Which is clearly different than kids “earning their keep” which presumes they’re at an age that they can actually successfully and competently do those tasks.

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1. slededit ◴[04 Sep 18 07:09 UTC] No.17907162[source]▶
Having to do work that is not fun is an important life skill. Children should have lots of play time, but "work" needs to be understood. You do it even if you don't like it because nobody else will do it for you.
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2. gowld ◴[04 Sep 18 15:12 UTC] No.17909572[source]▶
"Play" is the psychological/biological term for how children (of all species) learn important life skills by naturally finding them fun. Now that important life skills aren't obvious/instinctive because society is so complex, making those complex skills fun is the way to integrate them into the child's natural humanity. We don't need to make children miserable just for misery's sake out of some Puritanical ethic.
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3. ◴[04 Sep 18 15:31 UTC] No.17909707[source]▶
4. slededit ◴[04 Sep 18 16:03 UTC] No.17910001[source]▶
Nobody is saying to overload a child until they are unhappy. But the lesson needs to be learned that even if they don't naturally find it fun it still has to be done.