We’ll start with this: yes, you read that correctly.

If there is one thing that Lorelei shows me on a daily basis it is that she is a disaster. A full-on, diaper-removing, squealing, snatching, running disaster. So why the capable? Well, it means that for all her crazy (and believe me, there is mucho of the crazy) she can be surprisingly capable when she is called upon to act like a small adult. Sure, quite often she will run laughing up the stairs when I need her to come put on her other sock so we can just leave the house already. And she’ll occasionally draw on the bathtub with whatever’s handy and most likely to be permanent. But she loves to run the vacuum. She enjoys dusting. If I get out the broom she is after me like a greyhound so I can give her the dustpan. She’s excellent with a whisk– she’s basically like a small and maniacally happy maid. Who is free. And, fine, maybe not the best ever at her job, but we did say free, right, so there’s that.


Did I mention she makes a mean pancake?

It would seem like a no-brainer to let her work out her jones to clean whenever it strikes, but time, of course, is a formidable enemy. There’s never enough. I’m sure that Santa will be getting lots of adult requests this year for an extra ten hours in a 24-hour period this year *small, polite wave* because I can’t think of a single person who has managed to dodge that bullet. Often, it’s faster and easier for us to do things than to have the help of a toddler. The average toddler brings a new and special meaning to the word “slow.” All of a sudden, here’s someone you have to supervise and teach for every single tiny thing, and who is both blessed and cursed by thinking a day is an eternity and that anything they feel like doing can take an entire freaking geologic period. What I have found in practice, though, is a little surprising. Lorelei tends to live up to my expectations. If I do absolutely everything for her that isn’t either play (or at least its functional equivalent), Lorelei rewards me with a lower frustration point. In turn presenting me with the triune gifts of whining, obstruction, and hysteria. With some leg-clinging thrown in for a fun little bonus. Which, oddly enough, doesn’t really save me all that time I was supposedly in the business of saving.

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The alternative, of course, is to let her help. Mentally, it feels a bit of a drain to even consider, but what a scaffolding opportunity! I’ll drag you back with me to my college child development class for a minute. I’m still dutifully paying on the loans, so I may as well try to get some use out it, am I right? Psychologist Lev Vygotsky theorized that children had something he referred to as a Zone of Proximal Development; that is, a range of skills that spans from what a child is capable of today, on his own, at one end; to what a child is capable of today with the help of a knowledgeable other (could be an older child, an adult, or even a peer) at the other. Scaffolding is, essentially, the assistive tools used to help children operate at a higher level within their ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development). Children have a range of capability going from what they can do on their own to what they can do with help. When they have help, anything from new tools to new language to demonstration of a new concept is scaffolding, which allows them a higher level of performance along that continuum. If I was sweeping floors with Lorelei for the first time, I would be scaffolding by giving her a dustpan (a new, specialized tool), using my words and actions to demonstrate how to use it, and giving her support and help in any areas that were confusing or challenging to her. Pretty soon, when I get the broom she asks for the dustpan and knows just what to do.

It’s easy to take for granted how the simple tasks we do every day can be learning opportunities for a small child, and a way to grow and enhance competency. It seems a little boring maybe, or unfair, to many of us who don’t get enough time with our children as it is to think of spending some of those hours cleaning the house, or making a meal, or ironing the clothes, or writing up a grocery list. So we might put off, or outsource those tasks to make way for more quality time. I’m sure the best of us would go a little crazy if all we did was attend to that sort of accumulating minutiae. But I have truthfully found more closeness, companionship, and mutual enjoyment when I take the time to include the girls (especially Lorelei, since so much of these things are still new and wonderful to her) in the small, unobtrusive behind-the-scenes moments of our daily life.

Another amazing thing we do when we allow our kids to explore their ability to help and be capable in their own right is teach them in ever expanding ways what it means to be an adult in our society. Anthropologist David F. Lancy states in The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings (Cambridge Press, 2015) that, “There are a variety of possible mechanisms [by which children may acquire culture], but first and foremost, children observe and copy the behavior of more mature individuals.” When I let Lorelei help me make breakfast, or Ellie write up our grocery list, or when we take both girls outside to clear big branches along the driveway that have fallen during a recent storm, we are also giving them chances to more closely observe and participate in a more adult world. A world that I try to help them gain fluency and ease in so that when they are adults there aren’t any missing pieces or jarring surprises. It’s certainly food for thought, anyway.

And did someone ask for practical tips? After all, I said it was good; I never claimed it was easy. I’ll be rounding up my best tips for getting your toddler involved in the kitchen and be back to share. In the meantime, what sorts of things does your toddler love to help with?