Begin your program of training when the child is very young. When young he is pliable, willing and eager to learn. Upon reaching the age of three, he should have learned to put his toys away after play periods are over. At least by the time he is old enough to go to school, you should have taught him how to bathe and dress himself, and to put his room in order.

These things may seem trivial, but they teach the child to be orderly and dependable​—qualities so essential to being successful in later undertakings.

So off to school your children go. But is that all there should be to their day’s work schedule? Spending about six hours in school does not completely exhaust children. This is especially so when you consider the emphasis on recesses, play periods, sports and the relaxed manner of instruction and discipline in the classroom today.

In view of this, when your children return from school it would be beneficial if they had regular, assigned chores to do. It is good to have a schedule of such chores made out ahead of time so that each child knows what is expected of him. Of course, such schedules should not be so inflexible that adjustments cannot be made when unforeseen circumstances arise. Even learning to make such spur-of-the-moment adjustments in the schedule is in itself good training for the child, for this he will frequently have to do all his adult life, is it not so?

What to Teach?

Afterschool assignments can include any number of things around the home. This depends, of course, on the kind of home in which one lives, whether on a farm or in the city, whether in a house with yard space around it or in a small apartment with no responsibilities beyond the front door.

But regardless of where you live, there are many things around a home that children can be taught to do, and to do well. To name a few: running the vacuum cleaner and mopping floors, dusting and waxing furniture, washing and ironing clothes, cleaning off the table and washing the supper dishes, also carrying out the garbage.

Every girl should know how to cook. Teach them first the elementary tasks of preparing potatoes and onions to cook. Then progressively teach them to make salads, fix various meat dishes and make tasty desserts. They should also know how to bake. Even mothers who are rather poor cooks themselves can, with the aid of cookbooks, teach their daughters to prepare good meals.

Let the daughters at an early age learn to sew on buttons and mend the holes in stockings. As they grow older, teach them to run the sewing machine by patching work clothes, making aprons and hemming up towels. Every ten-year-old girl should also be able to knit and crochet​—practical arts that train the eyes and fingers.

Now, should these domestic duties be assigned only to the girls in the family? Parents who have foresight appreciate the wisdom of training their sons as well to keep the house neat and clean. Every man should be able to cook and sew when it is necessary, and they can learn the rudiments of these skills if they are included in their childhood work schedules. It is certainly shallow thinking to say that teaching boys how to cook and sew makes them effeminate. The science of seasoning and the chemistry of cooking are fields of knowledge that are attractive to manly boys. The man Jesus Christ was not only a good carpenter; he also knew how to cook, as the Bible implies at John 21:9-12.

There are other ways of helping a child to appreciate doing a rather disagreeable assignment. For example,. you might remind the child who balks at washing the supper dishes of how really fortunate he is to have had supper in the first place. There are millions of children living on the edge of starvation who would be only too happy to wash the dishes, just so they did not have to go to bed without supper. Now, your child might say he wants to trade places with these unfortunates. If so, let him go to bed a few nights without his supper until he develops appreciation for his privilege of washing the dishes.