The case for intentional laziness

I am trying to get better at not doing things for my son.

For example: He likes to cook, so twice a month, he has to cook dinner for the family. While either my wonderful husband or I will act as his sous chef, we make sure he does the bulk of the work. This gets hard if he claims he has had a "long day" at school, but we still insist that he is the head chef and is responsible for getting dinner on the table.

By the time we are all sitting around the table eating the meal he has made, he is enormously proud of his achievement.

This is by no means easy. It is 100% easier for us to do the task at hand than have our son do it. However, our job as parents is too make sure that he learns how to do things on his own. And that is probably why I enjoyed this article on intentional laziness parenting.

While I don't like the term - parents are doing a lot of work to create scenarios for their children to take the lead in situations they should be able to handle on their own - I do like the concept. My number one job as a parent is to prepare my son to leave my house one day. And he can't do that if he is still relying on Mommy for everything.

While we can't create these scenarios for our children all the time (we do need to get out the door on time and get on with our lives), I agree that there are enough moments where they make sense: Having the child help with their back-to-school planning, or packing their lunch and book bag for school or getting ready for a big trip. There are enough challenges in a year to make a difference without making anyone consistently late for work.

How do you challenge your child to take on new responsibilities for themselves? Tell me in the comments.