Developing A Good Work Ethic
In my previous article, Cultivating a Strong Work Ethic in Your Children, I talked about the benefits of meaningful work in our daily lives. This second part focuses more on developing a good work ethic. A good work ethic doesn’t just “sprout” or “happen” over night. A good work ethic must be modeled and exemplified in our daily lives as parents.
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How to ruin your child’s work ethic:
One of the surest ways to prevent the growth of a good work ethic in your children is to gripe and complain about the work and/or the job that you currently have now. As sure as the sun rises and sets each day, your child will develop the attitude that work is to be despised. You must stop complaining! Your job and your work have value. They provide you with an income to help raise your family and bless others (and several other things).
How to model a strong work ethic:
On the other hand, the best way to instill a good work ethic is to talk about your work in a way that honors it and those with whom you work. While doing this you are also honoring those for whom you work.
A good work ethic must be cultivated and grown – not manufactured.
Our children have the uncanny ability to see through our outward appearances and get the general sense for what we truly believe and feel toward nearly every subject. If we try to “fake” our attitudes toward work, our children see through it.
We’ve all seen people engaged in work that truly love what they do. It is a wonderful thing to watch. The make it look so easy and effortless. But, you can sense and see that it actually brings them (the worker) joy as well.
Then there are those workers who try to put on the smile, but are clearly faking every effort to seam to enjoy what they are actually doing.
Some don’t even attempt to fake at all. They make it clear to everyone they hate what they do. No one wants to be around that person. Every one is miserable. That’s no way to live.
A good work ethic needs to be modeled.
We need to show up on time, not late. Not one minute late!! Preferably 5 minutes early. Yes, 5 minutes early!
We must show up prepared to start work. Not trying to nurse a hangover or drop all your “personal stuff” on others.
Ready to work immediately with a grateful heart. Not contempt for our job and others.
We must give 8 hours of work for 8 hours of pay. Not 5 hours of work and 3 hours of laziness. Not checking our emails or scrolling through Facebook or the sports section on the internet. 8 hours of work.
We need to recognize good work ethic in others.
A good work ethic needs to be recognized in others and appreciated. You need to point out those people who genuinely have a good work ethic. You need to specifically call out the particular good things a person does about their job. In doing this your children see that you value work and other people who do it.
Any fool can point out the failures of others. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to find fault. It comes naturally. What does take training and wisdom is seeing the good in others and making sure that it gets lifted up. You need to purposefully make sure your children see and hear you pointing out the good things in others and the good things that they do in their work. They don’t start out doing a perfect job. Neither did you. But with practice and encouragement you eventually got better at what you did. And so will your children. Be a living example of always seeing the good in others and in them.
We need to enforce a realistic standard.
A good work ethic enforces a realistic standard. To a child it’s all unrealistic at first. What?? Pick up my toys? But that will take hours. And at first, it does. But, eventually, with the right training it later only takes a few minutes. Same with cleaning their rooms and making their beds and straightening their drawers. After they live with the benefits of order and cleanliness they begin to appreciate things kept right and clean. The standard should always be the complete job, not half a job.
Not unrealistic perfection, just a complete job and done in a definable manner that prioritizes the job for what its worth. I wouldn’t eat from the floor a chicken coop. So scrubbed clean and waxed so you “could” eat off from it, would not be very realistic.
On the other hand, leaving the table top looking like the floor of the chicken coop wouldn’t be a complete job either. The quality of the work needs to match the work at hand. Same with the standard of the work. It needs to match the work at hand.
The amount of work given to complete in reasonable amount of time is also very important. While my children were young and at home, we had a Saturday morning rule – Breakfast eaten, beds made and rooms clean by 9am. And yes! I inspected them too. But, I also let them inspect my room also to the same degree I inspected theirs. I wasn’t asking of them something that I didn’t first ask of myself. And they delighted in finding some things wrong with my house keeping, because I got fined for infractions, just like them.
Parameters for most of our work as adults and children should be the quantity of the work, matched with the quality of work, matched with the time frame to complete it. We all know what laziness looks like. And we all know what productivity looks like. Get the job completed in a reasonable time frame. Consequences follow for success or failure. Good consequences for good work, bad consequences for bad work or taking too long.
A few things to avoid:
Don’t ask if your children will do the work. State the work that needs to be done by them. Nothing perplexes me more than parents who try to ask their children if they want to participate in work. The children learn rather early that they would rather not. Don’t ask – State. Jesus said “Follow Me” He did not ask if they wanted to follow. The choice was either obey and do what he says or disobey.
Don’t “nick-pick it” your child’s work to death – literally! It will kill any desire to keep working. Find the good and encourage it and encourage the proper realistic standard.
Raising kids isn’t easy, but one of the most rewarding thing you can do as parent is teach your children a good work ethic. These are just a few suggestions to start though there are many more things that you could do. By putting into practice a few of these things you and your children will reap a lifetime of benefits.
Oh! and by the way – who’s teaching who? – Are you teaching and training them? Or are they teaching and training you? Be sure and tell me when you have that answer to that completely figured out.
Wayne Kauffman {aka Rebekah’s dad} has been married for thirty-three years and is the father of six living children. He attended Seminary at Liberty University, helped to start a few churches, and ministers to assisted living residents monthly. He owns his own business, enjoys triathlons, biking, and giving his grandchildren rides on “The Mule”.
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Cultivating a Strong Work Ethic in Your Children
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