Parenting
Perspectives on Parenting©
by Nancy Lambert Davenport


Nancy Davenport's Column:
For Richardson News 03-28-99
Copyright Nancy Lambert Davenport 1999


"Lists Help Toward Independence"


Lately, we have been going out of town for a few days leaving our son Austin at the house with a responsible friend. Each time we are gone, our absence seems to get a little easier for him. The one constant that he loves and lives by in our absence is his list and a schedule for each day.

Before we go, I set up a list of things he has to do and the time he is to do it. Each day has a page of activities and chores that he carefully checks off. It starts off with the time to get up and ends with bedtime. This detail helps his caregiver have less conflict with him, but more important, it gives the structure to his life that he misses when we are gone.

This is not the only time we have used lists in his life. When he was very young we used lists as a means of transition into independence as we are doing now but on a smaller scale. His earliest list read:
  1. Get dressed
  2. Put P.J.'s away
  3. Brush my teeth
  4. Make my bed
  5. Comb my hair
As items on the list became old hat, we dropped them off and added a new chore. I found that "make my bed" took quite a while to remove from the list. On the chart, the days of the week were lined up across the page left to right. The sheet with the list was under the glass top of his dresser, so he could mark it off with a grease pen each morning and erase the marks at the end of the week. It had the words as well as a picture of the activity since he wasn't reading yet. Our hope was that he would pick up some sight words while he was learning responsibility and independence. At the end of the week a certain number of checks earned a reward.

Checking off lists can be helpful for some children, but others simply do not respond to checks on a page. They need something more concrete. Instead of checks, one of our other children responded to putting a marble in a can for each item completed on the list. When the can was full he received a little reward (not food!). At first a week was too long to wait for a reward, so once a day there was a little something waiting for him if he completed his list without prompting.

These early lists can be the forerunners of the calendars our children will hopefully learn to keep as they get older. By learning daily routines early it will be easier for then to sit down for homework on a regular basis, keep appointments, self-monitor other areas of their lives, and generally become responsible citizens. Research shows that children who do chores that contribute to the household grow up to be more emotionally stable and successful adults. But I repeat, list or no list, there is no guarantee they will make their beds.


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Nancy Lambert Davenport
EMAIL: ndavenport@ticnet.com
URL: http://www.nancyldavenport.com