Work Ethic
Mr Geoff Lancaster | Principal | Grammar News | 4 March 2022
Last week guest speaker Dr Prue Salter ran a Study Skills session that was well attended by our Year 7 parents and students as well as a number of families new to St Luke’s in 2022. It was an excellent way to help students understand how they can take agency in their own learning as well as acknowledge the role parents play in helping each child get into good habits to achieve their potential.
As we began the evening, I referred to the Harvard Grant Study which is the longest-running longitudinal study in history, starting over 80 years ago. The goal of the study was to identify predictors of healthy aging but over the years has been useful in helping understand factors that help people to be happy and successful.
Two key determinants of happiness and success were found to be love and work ethic. Strong, loving relationships are not only correlated with happiness, but with physical health, longevity, and financial success.
Interestingly, the development of a good work ethic was closely linked to whether or not the person had done chores as a child. Chores are a bit of an Americanism but, as I am sure you are aware, are jobs like washing up, cleaning the house, mowing, cooking or feeding the dog. A poll conducted by Whirlpool in the US found only 28% of parents regularly assign jobs around the house to their kids, yet 82% had jobs around the house as kids themselves.
The research suggests that household chores help children build responsibility, autonomy, and perseverance — traits necessary to become capable adults. It makes sense that these jobs help children to see the work that needs to be done around them which leads to a mindset of pitching in in other settings. In the workplace, this translates to having a vision for what needs to be done and taking the initiative to do it.
Our job as parents is to put ourselves out of a job, and raise our children to independence. If we believe this then it is counterproductive to step in and do things for our children to save them the frustration - or perhaps save ourselves from the frustration of wanting to repack the dishwasher.
We are inclined to think that every activity is a make-or-break moment for our children and we don’t want to see them fail. But in fact, we are often subconsciously sending the message “I don’t think you can achieve this without me.” As we get into routines for the school year, I encourage you to consider the role we all play in helping raise our children for a happy and successful life.