Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Teens and Chores in Community

[Laura Fitch (lfitch]

At Pioneer Valley Cohousing, we generally leave any requirement for teen
work in the hands of the parents.  They know more about sports and school
scheduling conflicts, and the stress levels of their children.

Occasional Work Days:
As I parent, I generally give my children a several day heads up on
community work days.  I then tell them that I expect them to help on the
work day for at least 2-3 hours.  I suggest the time slot before lunch so
they can enjoy the rewards and camaraderie as well.  I let them know what
the jobs are that I think would appeal to them, and then try to let them get
involved with other adults.  It has made for really good mentoring and
participation.

Regular Work (dishes, cooking):
Again, as a parent I try to keep it simple and short.  "I am on community
dishes today, I'd like you to help me for 20 mins of it".  This way it is
more like a family expectation than a community burden.  It is short, it
involves other people enjoying work together.  They get immediate
appreciation from others seeing them help.

We've tried as a community a couple times to get a "teen work group"
together, but it has not worked.  I think it is like herding cats.  It
depends on an unfounded assumption that all the teens like and get along
with each other, when in fact they are very individual and different.  In
addition, their schedules are too weird.

Laura Fitch, AIA, LEED
Kraus-Fitch Architects, Inc
110 Pulpit Hill Rd.
Amherst, MA  01002
413-549-5799
lfitch [at] krausfitch.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Lofft [mailto:tlofft [at] hotmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2009 11:53 PM
To: Cohousing Network-L
Subject: [C-L]_ Teens and Chores in Community




RE: Scott Bantley's query:



I believe that you will get the greatest participation from teens on the
same basis as from adults: make it voluntary to the extent of self selection
of the tasks thet they are most interested in undertaking.  Seek to engage
their participation as members of the community and they may surprise you
with their creativity and initiative.



I continue to think of cohousing as hopefully a grassroots originated,
egalitarian community that lives and operates best by agreements, not by
rules.  Rules are by definition, top down, authoritarian, imposed from above
by the powerful on the powerless.  If that's how you want to treat your
teens, don't be too surprised if they react as any other oppressed
underclass.



Tom Lofft

Liberty Village, MD



Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2009 01:13:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: Scott Bentley <sleeper40 [at] sbcglobal.net>
Subject: [C-L]_ Teens and Chores in Community
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Message-ID: <917312.69691.qm [at] web81204.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Hello Neighbors,

We here at La Querencia in Fresno have been living in cohousing for about 6
months.? So far so good from my perspective!? We recently went from having
one 17 year-old and one 13 year-old (beside five younger children), to
having three additional teenagers and three additional younger children, and
potentially more of each soon to move in.?

Does anyone have experience with assigning regular chores to teens (beyond
just cleaning the teen room, and perhaps recycling cans).? Each adult in our
community has a regular chore (e.g., kitchen, bathrooms, walk-ways, etc.).?
Anyone have experience with Teens having a regular chore as well?? Actually,
the more important question,?should the community as a whole be able to make
a decision that "requires" teens to complete chores on a regular basis?

I will play a large role in communicating with the teens however things turn
out, so any shared experience will be valuable to me. I welcome a phone
conversation if that is more convenient for anyone.?

Thanks,
Scott Bentley



Thanks for writing.

Tom



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