ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: Kiger Hours learns about children and chores
Hamilton’s Steak and Seafood Restaurant hosted the monthly Kiger Hour Thursday night. The presentation was given by David Lancy, an anthropology professor at USU. His presentation, “Talking Trash, or Taking out the Trash: Chores in Children’s Development,” compared children in developed nations that refuse to do household chores to children in other cultures who are eager to work.
Natalie Archibald Smoot, assistant to the dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, is the organizer of the event. She said the Kiger Hour is a 10-minute presentation and dinner held monthly by the college.
“(Kiger) started this event just to involve the community, to let the community know what our college is about, all of the diverse departments that we hold. For everyone to be part of the university,” Smoot said.
The banquet hall at Hamilton’s was filled with members of the community and USU faculty that came to eat and listen to Lancy’s presentation.
Lancy presented incidents where children injured or killed their parents when asked to do chores. He said the anti-chore attitude is strange compared to most of the world.
“Universally in cultures outside of the present, children are expected to volunteer to help and they respond eagerly. Indeed, so eager are they to fit in and be useful they sometimes need to be directed away from tasks that are dangerous or beyond their capacity,” Lancy said.
Lancy showed slides to the audience that showed very small children doing household chores such as digging in the yard. He said there is a learning curve to doing housework with children.
According to Lancy, children go through a “preschool” stage in working. This stage consists of children mimicking work in their play. The children then move to a “kindergarten” stage where they do small chores like running errands next door or selling produce.
“All these task components gradually help develop the child, it’s really the core of an education,” Lancy said. “Around 7 years old, 8 years old, it reaches a point where it basically can do pretty serious kinds of things without supervision.”
There are several downsides to this model that Lancy said he needed to address. He said the line between household chores and child labor sometimes did not exist. Children will do dangerous work to provide for their families like pouring molten aluminum into molds without wearing protective equipment.
“”Girls are much more useful than boys, that should come as a surprise to no one,” Lancy said drawing laughter from the audience. He said girls are often so useful at home that their parents don’t send them to school so they can continue to help around the home.
“I hypothesized that there is a critical period in a child’s development, probably from the age of two to three,” Lancy said, “when they are ready and willing and eager to be helpful. That’s really important, a very powerful motive. If there’s no response to that motivation, if no one takes them up on the offer to be helpful, it will be extinguished.”
Lancy said by the time parents in Western societies decide their children are ready to help out it’s too late and the children will not help. He ended his presentation by showing a news clip that showed two parents who went on strike and camped outside. They refused to wash dishes, make meals and drive the children around until they did their chores.
Patricia Gantt, associate dean of the college, presented Lancy with a Kiger Hour clock.
“Not to remind of when your chores are due,” Gantt said, “but to remind you of this wonderful evening and how much we appreciate everything you shared, with your insight and beyond that the years of your superlative teaching and research.”
The Kiger Hour will continue through the summer and Glenda Cole, professor for the Intensive English Language Institute, will present on May 19