A Sense of Ownership

I became a bit distressed when my son took out the pencil shavings holder from the electric pencil sharpener because I thought he would spill the fine pencil shavings everywhere. I took the holder, dumped the shavings, and cleaned the holder all while fretting about the extra work I had to do to clean up after my son.

My son then took a new pencil and sharpened it using the electric pencil sharpener. I told him several times to stop because I did not want him to play with the pencil sharpener. When he was done sharpening the pencil, he used it on his "Dot to Dot" Buki Activity Book and completed several pages of dot-to-dot activities. I then realized that without my prompting, he took the initiative to sharpen a pencil to use on his own workbook and quietly worked on his activity book while his sister was practicing the violin. The fact that he could sharpen the pencil on his own made him feel that the pencil was "his" pencil, and that with his own pencil, he would assume responsibility for doing something with that pencil, which he did by working on his activity book. Accordingly, I will be more perceptive of future opportunities when I can give my kids more responsibilities so that they "own" that thing or action and thereby develop their own sense of responsibility.