It seems that kids nowadays can’t be bothered to work. A lot of parents are getting desperate. Why is it so difficult to intrigue our offsprings with something  sensible? To get them to  help out in the household or in the garden and often even to get them to do their school work?

Most probably we are not yet at the stage where it is a norm for young people to gather around in the streets out of boredom, as can be commonly observed in some of the more developed countries. However, in the eyes of some parents we are not too far from that. It is quite disturbing when a child or perhaps an adolescent or a young adult can sit around doing nothing the whole day, doesn’t seem to enjoy anything or be interested in anything, and according to his parents, is just aimlessly getting through his life without any direction and, at most,  sits at the computer for hours playing games endlessly or spending time on facebook. I’m not going to discuss the possible negative impacts of TV, computers, the busy life of parents, the complications in families or the small life perspectives of some children, because as we all know these things individually have a major influence on the child. Instead, I’m going to focus on how to look for other creative sources.

Examples for kids 

Throughout the entire duration of the kids‘ childhood it is important to serve as positive examples as parents. This is undoubtedly a common recommendation but it is still perfectly effective and at the same time it presents a simple medium. If the parents themselves are active, it is probable that they will encourage the child to be active too. However, this has several conditions.

The child should observe joy and pleasure on parents carrying out their activities and not just a responsibility, tiredness, exhaustion and dread in their eyes.

• The child should observe joy and pleasure on parents carrying out their activities and not just a responsibility, tiredness, exhaustion and dread in their eyes.
• The family activities should be diverse.
• At least a some parts of the activity should be really joyful and entertaining even for the child. (If the parents spend their entire free time in the garden and they force the child to keep on watering, hoeing and weeding, then there is a lesser chance that they will get the child to enjoy this activity.) Although ambitiousness could be forced upon the child for some period of time, this could lead to a precarious situation in which the child not only refuses this activity after some time, but refuses all activities.

On the other hand, the child’s activity is encouraged by the fact that he takes part in as many hobbies as possible together with his parents.  As long as the parents are able to provide a safe, encouraging and non-competitive environment, the child is able to enjoy the game, finds it entertaining for a longer time period as well as more educational and has a greater chance to be successful. And success is a fabulous source of encouragement for any kind of activity.

It is necessary to keep and further develop the interests since the pre-school age. But it is not always obligatory for the child to be excited all the time and to eagerly demand them.

It is just nice to enhance his range of capabilities, by trying out something new and teaching the child something new – when he then grows into an adolescence age or a young adult age, he won’t have to feel outcasted from the group of his peers since he knows quite a bit of everything and has tried out many things. It doesn’t mean that all the interests will last till the kid‘s adult age but there is a greater probability of him coming back to some of his old hobbies, further developing them or using them as skill he has once learned. I hence recommend for parents to be tolerant towards an alternation between hobbies and interests under some circumstances.

Many individuals, after some time, tend to come back to the activities from childhood which they have once refused. In this later age, they come back to the work in the garden and they begin to find this highly delightful and pleasurable, they begin to play the piano once again and to do recreational sports. It is good when your kids  have something to come back to.