Five ways to help your child to be productive

We all want to be productive right? Well.. at least some of us. When we come to an age of understanding is when we begin to start our journey on being productive. How about letting your child learn to become productive from an early age? Here are five simple and measurable ways to teach your child on productivity and help them build a successful career from a young age.

1. Give them stars: My eight year old son hated books. I on the other hand am a bookworm. What do you when your son is the opposite? I had to baptise him into it. This, I thought was a humongous task, but honest to God, this worked out real smooth. As a responsible (ahem!) father, I had to ensure that if he doesn’t start now, he may never start. So, I introduced to him stars. Each book that he reads, will get him one star. If he is able to collect ten stars, he will get a surprise gift (no, not a book). He was thrilled with this exercise at first, but, when he started to read, he was frustrated. He somehow finished his first book. He was elated to see the shining star on the post-it staring at him. He needed nine more to go. This hook or bait really helped him. As of today, he has finished over 110 books (not exaggerating) and he is now promoted himself to be called a book-worm. When you begin to appreciate for the work that you want your child to get done, they will choose to love to do it if you begin to introduce a perk. Now, you got to be careful on the bait. This is indeed a very tricky issue of knowing when to stop and how much to give without pressuring your child and letting him enjoy the ride.
   
2. Time TV/Netflix/Xbox on a daily basis: Television lures us to spend time with her. There are some who throws the television to their children not wanting to be disturbed or unaware how to take care of the kids. There are others who are extremely strict and don’t have them to watch anything at any time. Both sides are dangerous and one must be fit to understand how much is good and how much will harm them. As parents, we have allowed our son to play with the Xbox for 30 minutes everyday. This includes any TV time or netflix he wants to watch. Today, I can proudly say that we are able to save a ton of time everyday. This has also kept our family together and I can listen to her (a pretty difficult task) better.
   
3. Project Work: I recently read a twitter by a computer engineer mom who tweeted (I can’t get the tweet) that if her son wants a new game to be downloaded or played, she would ask him to do a small project work on who built the game, the year it was made, founder’s details, etc. This way, the child is aware of what he’s playing and it helps in bringing out great potential in gaining knowledge. I have tried this at home and it works wonders. My son has an Xbox and every time he wants to download a new game, I ask him to research on the game he’s doing. Now, he sits on Wikipedia, Google search engine, the founder’s details and writes a page document. Once I review it, I will allow him to download. He get’s his game and I get my son the knowledge he can gain from this exercise. 
   
4. Outdoor Play: I remember our good old days of my mom shouting at me when I didn’t come in time to study every evenings. Alas, now, our children have gone on the opposite direction of not wanting to go out thanks to the digital box at our homes. I had to literally push my son out to play and still do that from time to time. The challenge for my son also was that he did not have his friends come out and play as they were busy watching their televisions. We had to persuade our neighbours to let their children out to play. Outdoor activities are a must for every child to become a better person. The dirt, sweat, and the adrenaline helps your child to grow and develop physically and emotionally. Not sending your child outdoors should be a taboo in your house and make it a point to develop a habit of shooing them out to play.
   
5. Housework: Cleaning your homes is a herculean task in itself, now, imagine to ask your child to help to keep this clean. My son loves to throw clothes, toys, books, wherever he feels like and searching is a nightmare for us parents. When we started to groom him to keep things in place, he would do it for a day and forget it. I really cannot fathom of his forgetfulness in these matters but remembers the day I scolded him in public when he was just three. Keeping your child to part of the cleaning process in your homes is vital to groom her to be a better person. This year, we have introduced a concept of paying wages whenever he cleans up few things. This includes toilets (yes, I mean it), his bedroom, book shelf, dining table, front rooms. I am yet to see the result and will post whatever the result is.

These are something that has helped me and I hope these will help you too.