My Boys Can work first and play later. Teaching your children to delay gratification

Call me a skeptic but when I see today's kids with their cell phones, MP3 players, haircuts with expensive highlights, piercings, makeup and nice clothes, I think "Did you work for those things?"

Hands up those of you who remember saving your baby-sitting money for months so you could buy that new radio for your bedroom. Or calculating how many pay cheques it would take from your job at McDonalds earning $6 an hour to buy a new pair of jeans.

There are a whole bunch of blog topics related to work ethic, money management and the amount of value placed on material things but what I want to talk about now is the oh-so-important psychological ability to delay gratification. 

Work first, play later.

People who work first and play later know what it's like to sacrifice something of themselves to get something they want. Their time and energy, intellect, physical labour, whatever is required to complete the task at hand has value and hopefully the reward they receive reflects that. It's how the world works.

Teaching my boys that work comes first and play later prepares them for the real world. And as their parent ultimately that's my job. Giving them everything they ask for carte blanc without helping them understand the time, effort and money needed to provide those things gives them a completely wrong impression of the real world.

When the boys were very young, I involved them in whatever work I was doing whenever possible. Helping make the beds would mean getting the wrinkles out of a blanket or helping to set the table would mean putting out the napkins. At this young age, it was my language and doing things together that mattered. Their reward was the praise they received knowing they were being a very big help to Mommy.

When they were a bit older, about the age of 3 or so, I would let them see their reward first before we tackled the work at hand. If the reward was doing some baking (extremely exciting to both of them) or playing with a messy toy that only came out on occasion, the bowls would come out or the toy would be put on the table. I would give them their work instructions (usually cleaning up) and it would be completed in a jiffy because they could see what they were getting in return.

Now that they are 6 and 7, the work first and play later concept is well established. They will tell me they want to get all their homework done so they can play games on lego.com. Or if we talk about weekend plans, work and play are always discussed together because they know homework and reading has to be finished before we can do anything fun.

Sometimes I wish the world didn't work the way it does. In my lazy moments I would love to be handed gobs of money for nothing in return. But that's fantasy not reality. And I wouldn't feel I was doing a good job with my boys if I only showed them fantasy.