DTDL For The Young Under Parental Guidance
by Paul Chika Emekwulu
The word of God says in Proverbs 22:6: “Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.”
First if all, what is DTDL? DTDL stands for Day To Do List. A DTDL is a list of things to be started and completed either at the house or around the house or both. For your child, a DTDL item can then be defined as any activity that takes your child’s time and at times his or her energy. Any activity that meets that definition is qualified to be a DTDL item.
Examples include the following:
Doing the dishes, Washing clothes, Bible reading, Doing homework, farm work (for older kids), other activities deemed fit through parental guidance.
Parental guidance entails helping a child decide what qualifies as a DTDL item and what doesn’t, it entails inspecting and making sure all items are attended to and completed according to any laid down rules if applicable, it entails assisting a child in repeating an item only if necessary followed by appropriate punishment as needed.
Should a child suffer punishment, he or she should be made to understand why he or she was punished.
DTDL is a useful parenting tool if well utilized. The following are some advantages of DTDL as a parenting tool.
It brings order in a child’s life, it brings joy and happiness to your child, it helps to improve your child’s memory,
it teaches children how to set priorities,
it motivates your child, it helps to get children out of trouble, it improves relationship between family members especially siblings, it introduces division of labour in family life, it teaches responsibility, it is a disciplinary instrument especially for parents with a lot of kids, it is an influencer, DTDL is a teaching tool for example in mathematics etc.
Here is an example:
SAMPLE QUESTIONS
(a) How many tasks altogether? (b) How many tasks were completed? (c) How many tasks were not completed? (d) What fraction of the tasks was completed? (e) What fraction of the tasks was not completed? (f) What percentage of the tasks was not completed? (g) What percentage of the tasks was completed? (h). In questions (d) – (g), express your answers in decimal fractions.
Now let children practice identifying DTDL items for the day. Practice makes perfect. When DTDL becomes consistent and becomes very much a family tradition, and when children discover the joy of living with DTDL, it becomes a part of family lifestyle.
