|  No
longer am I going to fight with my 9-year-old daughter to get her
to do anything she doesn't want to do. It's so unpleasant that I've
about decided not to take her on. Why should I try to force her
to work and help around the house? What's the downside of just going
with the flow and letting her off the hook?
It's
typical for 9-year-olds not to want to work, of course, but they
still need to become acquainted with it. If you permit a pattern
of irresponsibility to prevail in your child's formative years,
she may fall behind in her developmental timetable leading toward
the full responsibilities of adult living.
As
a 10-year-old, she won't be able to do anything unpleasant since
she has never been required to stay with a task until it is completed.
She won't know how to share with anyone else because she's only
thought about herself. She'll find it hard to make decisions or
control her own impulses. A few years from now, she will steamroll
into adolescence and then adulthood completely unprepared for the
freedom and obligations she will find there. Your daughter will
have had precious little training for those pressing responsibilities
of maturity.
Obviously,
I've painted a worst-case scenario with regard to your daughter.
You still have plenty of opportunity to help her avoid it. I just
hope your desire for harmony doesn't lead you to do what will be
harmful to her in later years.
Dr.
James Dobson is founder and chairman of the board of the nonprofit
organization Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs; or www.family.org.
Questions and answers are excerpted from The
Complete Marriage and Family Home Reference Guide and Bringing Up
Boys, both published by Tyndale House.
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