When you're a kid, there's nothing worse than having your parents force you to do chores. It's no use explaining to a child the importance of tidying their room; they have to learn for themselves that cleanliness makes life easier. Still, after all the rigours of school and homework, kids often baulk at the idea of having to help with the dishes or take out the trash.
However, it turns out that all those speeches your mom and dad made about how doing chores build character might actually be true In fact, there's some evidence to back up those claims, and prove that doing chores can actually make you more successful, on average, later in life.
Watch Lythcott-Haims' full TED Talk below:In a recent TED Talk, Julie Lythcott-Haims, (the former dean of freshmen at Stanford University and author of How to Raise an Adult) stated: "If kids aren't doing the dishes, it means someone else is doing that for them, and so they're absolved of not only the work, but of learning that work has to be done and that each one of us must contribute for the betterment of the whole."
She added: "By making them do chores - taking out the garbage, doing their own laundry - they realize I have to do the work of life in order to be part of life. It's not just about me and what I need in this moment, but that I'm part of an ecosystem. I'm part of a family. I'm part of a workplace."
Lythcott-Haims has drawn these conclusions from statistics published as part of the Harvard Grant Study, the longest longitudinal study of childhood development ever conducted. Based on surveys of kids growing up conducted over the course of 75 years, Lythcott-Haims found that adults who reported that they had performed domestic tasks in their childhoods were (on average) happier, more productive, and more successful in later life.
So there you have it: next time your kids want to watch Frozen for the millionth time, instead of giving you a hand with the garbage, just reminded them that doing chores will set them up for an easy life later on...
