“Maturity comes not with age but with the acceptance of responsibility. You are only young once but immaturity can last a lifetime!” - Edwin Louis Cole

Raising successful, mature adults begins with giving children responsibility - even simple things like folding kitchen washrags and towels.

If you’re outnumbered in the Laundry Department, try engaging your children to help! I’ve found that even two-year-olds can find matches to socks and three and four-year-olds are fully capable of folding washrags and small kitchen towels.

Tips to Remember:

• Show first, watch second. Show them how to do it, and then have them show you how they did it. Instruct accordingly.

• Keep it fun! A task soon becomes a chore when it becomes unpleasant. Play some music and have yourselves a Folding Party!

• Be consistent. Weekly laundry becomes weekly opportunities for their new responsibility.

• Cheerlead! Keep them focused and on-track with praise and encouragement (not nagging and ultimatums)!

• Surprise, Surprise! Hide a small surprise for them in the basket! I like to hide a Hershey’s Kiss (for now) and a quarter (for later).

• No redos! Resist the urge to refold anything (post-instruction, of course)! Doing so would communicate to them that they didn’t do an awesome job and that you aren’t proud of them like you said you were. Put your heaped piles of towels and washrags into your kitchen drawer anyway. Smile…you had help today! (Side note: the longer you/they stick with their new responsibility, the better they’ll become!)