We know a family from our church that has 5 daughters and don't live far from us. Their middle girl, a 13 year old, has helped me move some firewood from an outside stack to my pole barn. This past Sunday afternoon, she came to help me get some wood stacked while I was running the splitter. WOW. She was quite the worker. She even saw things she could do to make my work easier, and did it. I hope to get her back to help me again. She has a lot more energy than I have. She stacked about 85% of the stacked pile and the pile of rounds was almost full when we started. I still see signs of hope with the younger generation when it comes to work ethic.
Reward her with money, time good advice; positive reinforcement will make it a habit. Keep it up and thank you
She did get paid and her parents know what a good job she did. We took a break while working and she even had no problem having a conversation.
The eight year old neighbor boy that came to me wanting to work a year or so ago didn’t work out so well after the second day. I quit calling him and used his friend a couple times. He wasn’t a lot better. But last weekend the first boy came knocking on my door wanting to work again. He should be 9 or maybe crowding 10 years old now. I’ll give him another chance after we have a little chat. So Erik B take care of your good helper, good help is tough to come by.
Erik, this is a great post! It pleases me to read about this. It also reminds me of the little neighbor girl who always wanted to help both Judy and I. We did work and had fun. I also would pick her up when she got off the school bus and bring her home where she would do her school work. That was nice because her parents at the time had no computer. So she was promised computer time whenever she needed it. I also was and still am "Grandpa" to her and her parents speaks of her as my granddaughter. Now that child is a grown lady (age 30) and has a beautiful daughter. I am looking forward to hunting with her again this fall and hope she gets another nice buck here on our place. I wrote this only to show another good story about helping and working with the young, be it male or female. Oh yes, she has twin brothers (age 19) who also help me and they are good kids. So thanks Erik for what you are doing and thanks for posting this.
It's hard to convey the value of self sufficiency to the youngins via labor. It's a shame that our current society mainly preaches that labor is something to be avoided.
