Dramatized Work
The chief difference between work and play to a child seems to be that in work a definite creative result is kept in mind, so that the end, rather than the means, is the central purpose. In play the means is everything and the end is a matter of indifference. Until the child is old enough to become something of a creator and inventor he does not instinctively perform much work. Sometimes before that period arrives, however, it is possible to interest him in profitable tasks if he can engage in them with his imagination; and all through childhood, and, indeed, all through life, imagination is the Shekinah that leads the host of toil through its wilderness toward the promised land.
A pleasant device to encourage young children to work is to denominate them as “soldiers,” “watchmen,” or “little partners.” The addition of a paper cap or a wooden sword or a policeman’s club will carry many a small youngster through a task which would otherwise seem intolerable. One mother has strengthened her family discipline by assigning each of her children in turn to be “the captain of the day,” giving each in turn special privileges and the responsibility of keeping the other children in order. If a boy or girl can only turn something into something else more to his liking, he will develop considerable industry. If the woodpile and the dishpan can be utilized as enemies to be destroyed and the untidy room as a province to conquer, these tasks are fulfilled with a complete, though furious, equanimity.
In one home where there were many humdrum tasks to be performed by the children the oldest won the enthusiasm of the rest by printing the names of all the tasks upon slips of paper and letting each draw lots. The uncertainty of the lot and the chance to relieve the tedium by entering for a time into the work of another changed the aspect of the whole situation.
The idea of partnership may be profitably employed all through childhood. The writer remembers an investment in hens in which the drudgery was completely lightened by the fact that he entered into equal partnership with his father, which involved the keeping of a leather-bound account book and the rendering of weekly balance sheets. It seems probable that during the years of youth, when imagination no longer disguises the task, the growing boy or girl meets it with complaisance and success because he still thinks of himself as a skilled craftsman who has pride in doing his work well.