Stop playing cruise director and live life as a family for real!

After a few years together, Louis, our first child, announced himself as a surprise. Quite intuitively, we kept our pace of life and our activities, bringing Louis into this couple's life that had become a family life. Louis slotted into our lives, sharing in each of our activities. Louis playing in the dirt with a shovel while we gardened, Louis following us, pail of water in hand, to feed the hens, Louis standing on a kitchen stool whisking eggs while Mom made a cake, Louis handing a wrench to Dad as he fixed the lawn mower, Louis coming with us to the grocery store and pushing his own little cart, Louis “sweeping” while Mom cleaned the bathroom, Louis flipping through a book while his parents read novels of their own, and so on.

Not only did we not change our habits when the kids arrived, we made sure our kids fit into them. It was never a question of signing them up for any classes on the pretext that we had to stimulate them. In fact, we signed them up for baseball once and dropped out partway through (shame on us!). Our kids have never lacked stimulation, since they've always done EVERYTHING with us. Very rarely do we ask the other partner to look after the kids so we can do this or that. I'd even say we tend to ask them if they want to join us in getting our tasks done. If I'm doing some “batch cooking,” I always ask the kids if they want to help. Often, the kids go down to the basement to keep Philippe company when he's working in his workshop. Of course, we accept that things won't get done as fast as we'd like. But we're in no rush, it's not like we have anything better to do!

In my opinion, this way of living is the most stimulating for them. Learning about life through the small tasks of everyday life, with no pressure to perform, is extremely beneficial for children this age. Kids get a lot out of it, developing their resourcefulness and independence, and we get a lot out of it too, since we can keep going about our business without feeling that the kids are holding us back.

Here are 5 tips to make doing tasks with kids easier:

• Include the kids in your daily tasks by giving them small missions that match their abilities.
• Accept that it won't go as fast as you'd like (breathe, what's the rush anyway?)
• Remember to talk through everything you do. Your kids are little sponges soaking up everything you say and do!
• Take the opportunity to chat with your kids. Ask them questions and create a moment of closeness (you'll be surprised at the confidences they'll share in this setting!).
• When you finish the task, congratulate yourselves on the result and acknowledge your child's contribution, however small.

Playing “cruise director” every day of the week, or even every weekend, is often impossible, so you might as well adopt this attitude, which lets you get on with everything you need to do while allowing your kids to develop valuable skills!

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