Background information
My child was diagnosed with Autism from the early age of 2.
I have Autism also and so Autism is a constant factor in my household.
Ever since we first got the diagnosis for my Autistic child, I have been constantly looking and researching, reading and learning about the best ways to help foster my child. To try to help them grow up and become independent, self reliant, responsible adults.
Being raised with an Iron Fist is truly, not, ever the way to go.
Now I am not saying that a household needs no discipline, NO!
A child will look up to the authority figures in their life and see them as guides.
Our children learn from us and mimic us.
They understand limitations and boundaries from us and learn how to live their life from us.
Preface to this Article
I want to preface this by saying that having your child do chores is not a bad thing.
They are essentially learning how to look after themselves.
And teaching them responsibility within the home and their own personal environment is not a bad thing either.
It is actually a good skill to have and a good instinct to hold.
No one wants to live with a dirty messy unkept person.
This post will not be speaking about not teaching your children to do chores at all.
What I am saying is DO NOT FORCE them to do chores.
Chores are not a solution to immediately growing into becoming a responsible person.
Fostering an effective household.
Do I teach my child to do chores, Yes!
And I tell them to clean up after themselves!
Because these are basic human actions.
However, there are psychologists and Dr’s such as Dr. Haim Ginott who in their book, “Between Parent and Child” claim that ‘chores teach home management but do nothing for creating more responsible individuals’.
And creating a forceful environement where the child knows that their parents will force them to do their chores will result in a lot of aggravation within the home.
Yes, your child might listen to do and do what you are asking them to do, however there are possible resentments which will start from that.
While they may be quiet and do their chores and what you ask of them, they will not be happy with you and will not be able to enjoy the results of their hard work as one should when things are neat and tidy.
So the whole point of everything is that we want our children to develop their inner sense of responsibility on their own, yet according to the values we teach them at home.
But it must come from the child itself.
Not from you!
Just because a child may clean up their room and tidy up their space, be on time and finish all their homework. Does not mean that they know how to make proper responsible decisions for themselves.
They may very well do all the things above and still get into very irresponsible situations because they are unable to be responsible when it comes to making other important decisions.
Essentially, responsibility and learning to be responsible and making responsible decisions stem from children who were given choices as children.
Not, no guidance. No!
But given a wide variety of choices.
Now how does this link to Autism?
Autism and Chores
Autistic children can be quite emotional.
Yes, we think to them of them as Black and White, but I can tell you that it is very easy to hurt an Autistic childs feelings.
Keep this in mind when you speak harshly to your Autistic child and try to force them to do chores.
What they will begin to do is associate chores with something negative, repressive and unhappiness.
An Autistic child makes associations quite differently than the neurotypical person.
For example:
An Autistic child trips down the stairs just as you walk into the room.
The result:
They will associate you coming into the room as the cause of them tripping.
So they will begin to not want you to walk into the room when they are coming down any stairs.
They will not want you around if they are walking anywhere steep etc.
When we now understand that this is how the Autistic child’s mind makes associations, how do you think their mind will respond to you trying to force them to do chores.
And of course keep in mind that force, usually means an angry, annoyed and loud parent.
ALL things uncomfortable and something any child, Autistic or not would want to get away from.
Personal experience with Autism and Chores.
It would actually be quite comforting for me to have my room a complete and utter tip.
Especially in my teenage years.
If I wanted to, I could clean my room better than any professional cleaning company ever could.
But that was not the point.
Growing up the world was ever changing.
Everything felt different and every day was a new experience.
Bring on the stress of exams and the stress of meeting people everyday. Forced to have conversations and maintain relationships with my class peers and acquaintances.
None of which I could control!
Lack of control of my environement led to me feeling a lack of control over my life.
So to combat this, my room looked like a hoarders house.
(No disrespect to any hoarder, it is also a mental illness!)
Mind you, I knew exactly where everything was and where I kept what.
Ask me about something and within seconds I had handed it to you. Even from among the piles of crap I had laying around.
The psychology behind this:
I had no control of my environement. And I felt like I was losing it.
Already, Autistic children are not very well adept at understanding their environement.
This, plus all the other sensory imput we have to deal with on a daily basis, particularly socially means we frequently feel at a loss and out of control.
And again, we cannot control any of this chaos.
SO what do we do?
We create a chaos. Complete and utter chaos that WE ourselves have caused. Absolute hurricane in our room.
But why do we do this?
Well, we do this because it gives us a sense of control over the chaos that is happening in our lives.
- We create the chaos.
- And control the chaos.
- Navigate around the chaos.
- And can fix the chaos anytime we choose.
That kind of control over a messy situation is one of the only things we have.
So parents please, do not take this away from us.
When my mother would force me to tidy my room, and make derogatory comments on my roomkeeping skills, as well as attacking my character for it. It did nothing to help our relationship.
Because it is the only thing I was supposed to have control over.
The thing (albeit chaos) that caused a calmness to come over my mind everytime I saw it. Was taken away.
And so to appease my mother, and to please her and to ger her to stop the personal attacks.
I would tidy and clean as though I was a professional.
And this of course would greatly please my mother.
But it worsened my Anxiety and Stress.
- I hated my clean room
- I wished it was messy
- And it upset me with how tidy and neat it was.
It is worth noting that I ONLY felt this way about my room.
The rest of the house, I did not mind helping out with the chores so much.
But my room was my sanctity and it was my personal space and what made me feel safe.
The control I had in my own safe space became non existant.
This among several other events and reasons in my life led to my eating disorder.
You can read about that here, “The Link – Autism and Eating Disorder”
Appeasing my mother really did nothing for me psychologically or mentally.
The problem with the mentality around chores in the mind of children comes directly from the attitude of the parent!
The solution
So we have established that you should never force your child to do chores.
But how can you get them to want to do it.
The solution is simple.
FOSTER your childrens NEEDS!
Show your child how to express their feelings through healthy outlets.
Lead by example.
Also, you must respond to the feelings that trigger the action.
I sound like a parrot on repeat! Respond to how your child is telling you they feel. Ask them how they feel.
DO not respond to the action.
Do not shut them down because of their reaction to their emotion.
Deal with the root problem, not the surface reaction.
Ask them how and why they felt the need to react that way!
Do not gaslight your children when they try to express to you their emotions.
And Never, ever ask them to suppress their feelings.
Also do not act like you know best!
When your child tells you that they feel angry, do not tell them that “NO you feel angry, because good children do not feel angry”.
When you constantly ask your child to repress their emotions, they will do so. BUT will eventually explode!
And for this explosion you will blame them.
They will start becoming distant from you and will even begin to resent you!.
How do we allow them to express their emotions?
The first thing is that we as parents and caregivers of our Autistic must take initiative with helping them speak and communicate with us.
It is true that a parent knows their child best.
We are always very good at being able to read clues and signs of our Autistic child to see and be able to tell how they are feeling.
Even our Autistic children who may be non verbal and not able to communicate properly.
(On a side note I have various Pivotal Response Treatment Therapy posts that you can do with your child in your own home which will help foster them to speak to you and communicate much better with you as they get older.
You can read those posts here:
Anyway,
Asking questions can sometimes bring resentment and also make a child not want to come home for ‘interrogations’.
The way to actually get our child to speak to us and to communicate openly with us is for us to make a statement about what we see.
Sometimes, these statements can be generic such as “I can see you are upset”.
Do not ask, “why are you upset?”.
The statement will allow your child to feel like it is their choice whether or not they open up to you and also makes it sound much more like you are being very sympathetic towards them.
That sympathy and empathy is what will make them comfortable speaking to you!
Even if you cannot change their mood, you certainly WILL absolutely and undeniably make them feel the love you have for them.
Linking emotions to chores
Sit down with your child and have a conversation about chores.
Tell them that you, even as an adult have chores that you absolutely do not like to do but you still do them because you love everyone else in the house and you want them to be comfortable and happy.
Making a living environment pleasant smelling and with plenty of access fosters a positive home and also happier residents.
See which chores your child hates the most and which they do not mind to do and which they like.
Come up with some compromises, and work together.
That teamwork between parent and child is really what is needed.
The child begins to understand that their parents also must do things for the comfort of everyone else even though it is not their favourite thing to do.
A child, once seeing their parents do this will also follow and do the same for the rest of their household and residents.
Disclaimer
Sometimes, instead of talking down to our children, and making it sound like we are taking away their free will. Having a proper discussion with them and listening to them and understanding their points of view.
WILL seriously go a long way in their development, their understanding of their environment and also will help them grow into becoming responsible, caring and compassionate adults.
So often, we ourselves are so used to the old school parenting methods that we speak in a dictator like manner with our children. Not knowing the harmful effects that it has on their self esteem, their own developing people skills and the way that they feel about us.
So many of us dread our fathers coming home, or our mother finding out we did not do too well in our exam etc.
We have an inherent fear instilled in us, of our parents.
And let me tell you.
Fear is not respect.