A few days ago, I set my 3.5-year-old son up with some cucumbers, an Opinel knife, some fish sauce, some vinegar, and a bowl. We had friends over, and I was searing Korean short ribs. Figure it out, buddy.
The cucumbers were not evenly sliced, and he was overzealous with the fish sauce, but it worked well enough as a side dish, saving me five minutes of time. It wasn’t busy work; I really needed my time freed up, and I judged him capable-ish of handling the responsibility. My hope was not that the task would be done perfectly but that the salad would not be dressed with blood. Success.
We do this with laundry: I sometimes ask him to load the washer. And with clothing: He has a child-size wardrobe and small hangers, and I throw his clean laundry on the bed, asking him to hang it up. It ends up looking less orderly than when I do it, but I don’t mind if it saves me time and teaches him responsibility. He sets the table (poorly!) and uses a small vacuum to attack clumps of dog hair before we host friends for dinner. Amazon packages are his magnum opus—he gets that Opinel knife out and stabs them as soon as they come.
