Adam Victor Brandizzi

teaching your children responsibility at a young age is important. i am a firm believer that we should let them help whenever they ask, even if it means that it will take twice as long or create a bigger mess than if we did it ourselves. kids love to watch and mimic what they see. when they see us cooking, folding the laundry, sweeping the floor, making a bed, etc... they will usually ask "can i help?" let the answer be "yes." it teaches them to contribute and responsibility.

all of my kids contribute in their own way, even sailor who is just thirteen months old. birdie likes to wash windows, wipe down the counters and clean the bathroom mirrors. using the spray bottle is definitely her favorite part. she gets to spray three times and then clean it off with a rag. this is so much fun for her.

she also likes to walk frances, our pug. every morning as soon as she wakes up, she zooms downstairs and pulls on her sweater, hat and boots so she can take frances outside to potty. she has declared it "her job" and gets excited every single time.

sailor loves to sweep. sure, he isn't actually sweeping the dirt off the floor, but he is still contributing in his own way. once he's a little bigger we will teach him how to sweep properly, but he sees us sweep and is doing his best to help out.

the big kids are big contributors because they are older. they switch off with kitchen duty every other day. kitchen duty includes loading and unloading the dishwasher and wiping down the counters. milla feeds and waters frances and waters the plants. julian takes out the garbage and breaks down boxes for recycling. they also switch off cleaning the living room and family room each day including sweeping the floor and vacuuming the rugs. i've got some good little helpers around here.

when kids feel like they are contributing and doing their part, they are happier, feel confident and learn responsibility. here are some good age appropriate ways for kids to contribute around the house.

1-3 years old
pick up toys and put them where they go.
help sort laundry into piles by color.
organize shoes.
hanging clothes on hooks.
putting plastic and paper into the recycling bin.

3-6 years old
set the table.
help with preparing meals.
help with grocery shopping and putting groceries away.
help folding jeans and matching socks.
walking the dog.
washing windows and mirrors.

7 years old and up
water the plants.
load and unload the dishwasher.
take out the trash.
folding laundry.
sweeping and mopping.
vacuuming rugs.
cleaning bathrooms.
pulling weeds in the yard and raking leaves.

the most important part of teaching our children to contribute and responsibility is to give them praise. make sure to say "good job" after they complete a task. they will feel so good and proud of themselves!

we use a lot of honest products in our household. the multi-surface cleaner, the bathroom cleaner, the dishwasher pods and laundry pods, the hand soap and hand sanitizer. all of these products are non-toxic and kid friendly, so you don't have to worry about harsh chemicals. of course supervision with small children is a must when using any cleaning agent.

honest is giving bleubird readers $10 off a minimum purchase of $40 using the code 10OFF40BV. offer applies to U.S. and Canada residents only. one per customer, valid for first time orders only. expires November 14th.

p.s. i want to add that birdie LOVES the honest kid's toothpaste. this girl would seriously brush her teeth all day long if she could and she's picky with her toothpaste. we'll be stocking up over here.

*this post was sponsored by honest co. thank you for supporting the sponsors that make bleubird possible.

Isaac Morehouse argues that college is a waste of time and bad investment for most people.

What is college for?

If it’s a four year social experience, it seems really overpriced.  If it’s to gain knowledge, why not learn from better teachers and do it free online, and at coffee shops with friends?  If it’s to prepare you for a successful career, it’s the most absurd format imaginable: You are supposed to learn how to be successful in the marketplace through a system mostly sheltered from the marketplace, from people who mostly hate the marketplace and have chosen a career that protects them from it.

If we taught bike riding like we prep for careers, you’d spend twenty years reading about bikes without riding, until you graduate, at which point you’d be dropped off in the middle of the highway and be told, “Good luck!”

Morehouse’s article is, in part, a commercial for his new company, Praxis:

Drop out.  Don’t get a degree, get an education.  Do something different with your life.  You were born an entrepreneur; a creative problem solver who overcomes through trial and error.  That’s been smothered by years of schooling.  What would happen if you broke free?

That’s why I launched Praxis.  I want to awaken your inner entrepreneur.  I want you to get out of the classroom and into the world.  I want you to learn by doing.  I want you to change the world.

I have some sympathy for Morehouse’s complaints, if not his advice.

Regarding his complaints: College is too expensive. Many students get very little direct value from the experience. Academically Adrift and other studies, such as work in educational psychology, indicate that students tend to learn little and develop little. There’s reason to think that the entire premise of liberal arts education–We teach you how to think, etc–assumes a mistaken theory of learning. Most people don’t transfer learning from one domain to another. Most people don’t apply skills from one domain to another. Most people don’t see connections among ideas unless told to do so. And so on.

So what is college for? For the sake of argument, let’s be really cynical. The purpose of college is to signal to others, including potential employers, that you are a smart and perseverant conformist. It can also indicate that you’ve been socialized to be the “right kind of person”. The strength of this signal depends upon your college and your major. So, what does it mean if you don’t finish college? That signals to people, including potential employers, that at least one of the following is true: You are not smart. You are not perseverant. You are a non-conformist. You haven’t been socialized properly.

I teach a first year seminar in the fall semester in which we spend 1 1/2 weeks asking “If you want to be an entrepreneur, should you drop out of college and instead invest the tuition money in your business?” I ask Bryan Caplan to guest lecture on The Case against Education. My students are interested in entrepreneurship–otherwise they wouldn’t take my class. Still, most of them rightly conclude that dropping out of college is a huge risk, given the social meaning of the undergraduate degree. Their undergraduate degrees signal the right things to others, and so open all sorts of doors for them. For most of them, dropping out will close those doors but is unlikely to open more or better doors.

We’ve had students come through here that, as sophomores, are developing companies that can sell smart phones for $100 or less in Africa. If you’re that kind of person, you probably should drop out and pursue your business. And if you think you have the potential to be that kind of person, maybe Praxis will help you. But for the modal student I’ve encountered at Arizona, Brown, or Georgetown, my best advice is “Stick with it, but pick a harder major.”

UPDATE: Keep in mind, that if the signaling model is only partly true, and if instead college actual does develop people’s skills and human capital, then Morehouse’s case is even weaker.

Image: Wikimedia Commons