Austen Likes to Help with Adler

It must be that Montessori education that has Austen helping out a lot around the house. The Montessori philosophy encourages you to get your children involved in everyday household activities so that they feel like they are useful. I never thought a toddler needed to feel useful but you can tell how much Austen enjoys having a task to do and how proud of himself he is when he accomplishes it. I think it builds their confidence.

Well, for a few months now, we've been letting Austen help feed Adler. He'll pick up Adler's bowl and open the pantry door where Adler's food is kept. We'll help put the food in the bowl while he holds it and then knows to trudge back over to the refrigerator for Adler's green beans. Sometimes he'll give the bowl back to us to put down on the floor or sometimes he'll put it down himself. Now of course there's a downside to letting Austen help out - many times he's accidentally dumped the entire bowl of food on the floor. But instead of getting upset with him. I challenge him to pick up the morsels of dog food and put them back in the bowl. Okay, I admit, once when I was tired, I just let Adler eat her dinner off of the floor. But Austen's getting better at balancing and lately there have been no games of 1000-morsel pick up!

However, feeding Adler isn't the only thing that Austen likes to help with. When we take Adler for a walk, he insists that he hold Adler's bag of poop and throw it in the garbage. Check out the picture if you don't believe me. Tom and I laugh because passersby on the street probably think that we have our child hold the bag because we don't want to.

Well, I can't say that we miss this job, but don't worry I make sure we wash his hands thoroughly after.