Study: Sharing your child with housework makes him academic excellence

Laila Ali

A study titled “Does the contribution of children to household chores affect their academic achievement in early childhood?” Has shown that children's participation in household chores positively affects academic performance. And the things they use, this promotes multi-sensory learning.

Participation in household chores develops their abilities and important concepts such as observation, counting, subtraction, and creativity that they naturally apply in all areas of learning, such as mathematics, science and others.

The 2015 study at the University of Kenitra revealed that the small percentage of children participating in household chores, which did not exceed 4.4%, have more outstanding academic performance than their peers.The domestic chores enabled them to develop important benefits such as responsibility and self-reliance.

These children are less dependent on the teacher. They try to solve the mathematical problems themselves first before going to the teacher, and they can arrange their drawers and clean themselves after doing school activities.

Weak participation
In spite of the advantages of doing housework in the study, which was conducted in a sample in Kenya, the majority of children at home spend their time mainly doing homework (51.1%) or sitting in front of TV and computer games (24.4%) or active play ( 20.0%), while only 4.4% of those surveyed contribute to domestic work.

Children involved in household chores reported that they dealt with a variety of household materials and equipment that gave them many skills and concepts that were useful in the areas of learning, such as science, math, language, social studies, life skills and motor skills.

The children in the study confirmed that exploring the environment around the house during their work has enabled them to develop the skills of discovery and exploration, an important skill in scientific activities that require them to discover scientific concepts and interpretations of natural phenomena, and monitoring things inside the house and doing things such as cleaning and observing how machines work lead to Ease of conducting scientific experiments and implementing projects in the school.

Types of housework
For the types of household chores that children prefer, the results of the study indicate that children tend to engage more in personal household tasks rather than in household chores for the benefit of the whole family.

Children prefer to polish their personal shoes, clean their rooms, fold their clothes and wash their own things, and do not prefer washing dishes, cleaning the house or cooking.

These findings reflect the individual nature of children, and this must be resisted. Failure to participate in socially-oriented activities can deprive children of important social benefits and life skills, such as interaction skills, teamwork, time management, a sense of participation, collaboration, and role-play. For academic competence.

Why are they running away from help?
Domestic chores are activities that children normally do, by observing the role of parents, older brothers, relatives, and others, a traditional practice in many families around the world, where most cultures recognize the importance of learning through participation in household chores, It is a starting point for the development of critical skills critical to the overall development of the child.

These traditional practices were confirmed by the Jomtien Conference on Education for All (Jomtien Conference in Thailand in 1990) which emphasized that learning begins at birth and that early learning experiences are important in early childhood.

However, most urban children are no longer engaged in household chores. In the past decades, globalization, industrialization and technology have brought about a change in lifestyles and child-rearing practices.

He also notes that all household chores are done by an assistant or a servant, so children no longer do household chores but become more and more involved in computer games, watching TV and movies.

The study by Esther Kolondo Ambitsa, an assistant teacher at the Department of Educational Psychology at Masindi Molero University of Science and Technology, found that parents did not associate housework with academic development, so they ruled out assigning their children homework to give them enough time to do their homework.

Parents also feel that their children are still young and that they lack the skill and ability to perform and use household tools. The study recommends that parents and policymakers should be informed about the role of housework in academic development.

Commenting on the participation of children in household chores, Kawthar El-Khouly, director of the Noon Center for Women and Family Issues, said that chores have historically occupied an important place in children's activities, where skills and knowledge about generations are transferred through observation, experimentation and adult instruction to young people. But indicators show that this lifestyle is rapidly eroding as children's activities at home have changed dramatically.

The reason behind this is because the parents think that the involvement of children in some household chores is such as carrying overloads that are not commensurate with their childhood and their ability to endure, and it comes to the point that the fingers of cruelty and dry heart directed to every mother and father believe that the involvement of children In household tasks is an educational behavior par excellence.

Perhaps this trend has been proven, whether through practical experience or research developed in a number of countries concerned with the rights of the child, which is keen to nurture and raise the child in a normal climate that makes him an active person in society, able to be productive and contribute In community development.