Here’s a great video (from Twitter, less than 2 min!). Many good cognitive points, including executive function, which is huge.
Here’s a transcript.
[00:00] Do you know what the strongest predictor that a child will succeed as an adult is? A 75-year Harvard study that tracked people from childhood into their eighties found one specific thing predicted a successful life that holds together when the road gets rough.
[00:15] What they found wasn’t on anyone’s parenting checklist. It wasn’t grades, it wasn’t IQ or talent, and it wasn’t activities. Most parents are doing the exact opposite. We pile on activities, sign them up for tutoring, and then we lie awake wondering we’re not doing enough.
[00:30] The study found that kids doing chores by preschool were 12 times more likely to be financially stable by their mid-20s. Chores build executive function—the brain’s ability to plan, start, and finish even when motivation is gone.
[00:45] Here’s why that matters: Achievement teaches kids to perform when someone else is evaluating them. Contribution teaches them to function when no one’s watching. When kids learned early that they were needed—that things just didn’t happen for them but happened because of them—capability lived in their body, not just in their heads.
[01:02] It built someone who fixes problems when they see it, someone who can handle hard. It builds agency. You want kids who see the overflowing trash and take it out without being asked.
[01:12] Create a culture where contribution is the norm. Signal the trash is full or groceries are in the car. State the problem—don’t assign the task—and let them connect the problem to action. Because small acts of ownership practiced daily compound into a lifetime of taking initiative.
[01:28] And that’s the difference between someone who waits to be managed and someone who takes ownership of the world.
This is teaching responsibility, indirectly.
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
