아이들은 집안일을 하며 가족을 도와야 하는가 혹은 공부하고 놀아야 하는가?
It is often said that children need not to work and letting them study and play is better since they are young. However, as far as I’m concerned, children also should help families with household chores for two reasons: children can learn sense of responsibility, and parents can lead them to know about the hardness of working for family at home
First of all, the sense of responsibility could be taught by doing house chores. This is attributed to the fact that through the consequences that arise from negligent actions on assigned work, children learn the importance of obligation. I have a cousin who was lazy and selfish. In the past, he didn’t clean his room, never had washed dishes, and even hardly arranged his bed. About 6 months ago, his mother was angry at his behavior and make him do some household chores including washing the dishes after having dinner, cleaning his room and bathroom every day, and washing his inner ware every evening. He has changed little by little after promising to do some hose chores. He realized that his laziness could bring a poor result for family members, and therefore he became more punctual and came to considerate of others better. As a result, he learned the hard way to be more punctual and responsible to avoid unnecessary hardship.
Also, children could realize how much their parents try to raise them from doing assigned household chores, and they come to consider them precious ones. Since mothers usually work for homes during the daytime when their children are in school, they are not well aware of how hard they work. However, children need to learn the hardness of the work. This is because from understanding his or her mother’s exertion, the child can feel thankfulness and get to know her love for him. This would lead him to realize he is a valuable being. In 2002, the psychology department of California University in the US conducted a research about correlation between aspects of domestic division of labor and the emotional state of the children. The results showed that the children who have helped their household chores were more cooperative persons in a group and had more stable emotional state, thinking they themselves are valuable ones. In this sense, having them do certain part of house chores is the way for them to know how they are loved and precious beings.
To sum up, when children do some part of their household chores, they can feel how much their parents exert to raise them up and from the realization, they come to believe they are valuable, as well as they turn to be more responsible through the consequences caused in default of their assigned work. For these reasons, I strongly agree to let children do some house chores.