The Extraordinary Ordinary – The Reality
The Extraordinary Ordinary is an ongoing series exploring the remarkable things quietly happening inside ordinary moments. Together we’ll explore how everyday experiences shape our brains, our relationships, and the stories we tell about ourselves. We’ll discover opportunities for child development to flourish in everyday life.
The Reality
(Adapted photo of toddler pulling laundry out of dryer with close adult supervision created with Canva Premium, July 2026.)
Child Development In Everyday Life
There truly are the remarkable things quietly happening inside of ordinary moments. We don’t have to get our chores done before we make time to do remarkable things with our children. And no, we don’t have to watch work pile up. Let’s notice the built-in opportunities. And, let’s keep it simple. We’ll focus our exploration on one chore and break the opportunities down by developmental age and stage. Laundry may not look educational, but it creates opportunities for child development in everyday life. What age are you most curious about?
Opportunities in Ordinary Laundry by Age and Stage
| Developmental Stage | What the Child is Wondering | Our Opportunity | What These Ordinary Moments Can Build |
| Infants & Young Toddlers | Can I trust this world? | Be their safe place. Connect before you accomplish. Play peek-a-boo while folding laundry with a smile. Let them return to you with a glance or a whole-body hug, inviting them into your presence. | Safety, attachment, curiosity, and the confidence to explore. |
| Older Toddlers | Can I do it? (“Me do it!”) | Be their encouraging partner. Slow down enough for simple helping tasks. Narrate instead of praise to build their awareness and confidence. Let them contribute at their developmental level. | Competence and early identity exploration, coordination and motor skills, language and early math. |
| Preschool & Young Kindergarten | Who am I? | Invite them to belong. Make room for small hands, imperfect folding, and authentic helping. Let them experience being trusted and needed. | Self-concept, belonging, responsibility, and the belief: “I am a helper,” along with progressing motor skills. |
| Elementary | Am I good at things? | Coach growing competence. Give meaningful responsibilities and specific feedback that helps children recognize their own growth and contribution. | Mastery, skill, perseverance, and joy in contributing. |
| Older Children & Teenagers | Who am I becoming? | Walk and work beside them. Invite them into meaningful work, trust them with real responsibility, and embrace side-by-side conversations that happen naturally while working together. | Trust, executive functioning, responsibility, healthy relationships, and identity. |
Infants and Young Toddlers
Our littlest humans, are trying to figure out, can I trust this world? This is important because if they can trust the world they can relax, play, and prosper. In infancy this question is answered by being with you. You are the safe person they trust and the safe place from which they can explore the world. For toddlers the question continues to be answered by being able to return to you, sometimes through a look, and sometimes through a whole body slam. For these littles, helping is all about experiencing connection with you.
How do you get anything done while connecting? Through connection games like peek-a-boo. You can play peek-a-boo around the laundry as you fold the towels and hang the clothes. Peek-a-boo is one of the most powerful early childhood games for supporting development of social-emotional skills and cognitive skills like object permanence. (Are you wondering if you will spoil babies or make them dependent on you by playing with them like this? No worries. Development doesn’t typically work like that. First they feel safe with you, then they explore away from you. You will soon be chasing them.)
Older Toddlers
Older toddlers who have felt safe enough to explore their world start to wonder about their own role in it. This is when they first start to explore their identity. They start to ask, can I do it? Or, more accurately phrased for some, “Me do it,” or “I do it!” These toddlers are ready for the basics.
Heads up, because our adult brains are so advanced, the basics may fly under our radar. You need to really think basic or you will be creating more work for you to redo later. The basics could include the toddler task of finding all of the washcloths one by one, then finding all of the socks one by one. Some toddlers may be able to match all the white socks, others may have the developing skill to match specific socks. All of this matching relates to early math skills. There is also a lot of body awareness and small muscle work and coordination developing as they toddle around and lift towels or dresses to find the smaller treasures and to move them around to their corresponding piles.
Because you are present in the moment with them, you can narrate what they are doing. They don’t need a “good job.” They benefit from hearing you describe what they are doing. That narration makes them feel seen and that is “good job” brought to life. It means everything to them. That naration of what you notice them doing is also bathing them in language, helping them develop a diverse vocabulary. All the while you are getting to do your more skilled jobs of folding and hanging done from their sorted piles.
Preschoolers and Kindergarteners
Preschoolers and young kindergarteners have leveled up. Their identity is becoming more complex than just what they can do. They are asking, who am I? Helping you with the laundry answers that with developing self-concept ideas like: I am a helper, I belong, I am part of this family, I am dependable.
Another heads up, the helpfulness and dependability are both real and still at a preschool and kindergarten developmental level. Imperfectly folded wash cloths and pants hung crooked are what it looks like on the outside, but on the inside the growth is massive. When we slow down enough to allow time for small hands, we aren’t simply completing chores. We are helping to build a person, teaching humans how to human. Inviting children to be authentic helpers working with us provides the experience of being worth our time and trust. This investment quietly shapes how they will see themselves for years to come.
Elementary Age Children
Elementary school children take a second look at what they can do and they begin comparing themselves to others. They are wondering, am I good at things? Ordinary chores are a safe place to experience mastery. They can say, “I set the table. I made part of dinner.” Maybe making dinner was placing the fish sticks on the cookie sheet or maybe they’ve learned how to cut vegetables with supervision. They compare themselves to you and other family members, experiencing how their efforts are valued and helpful.
And the laundry? While you fold your clothes they fold theirs and the towels. You can occasionally narrate like a sportscaster or give feedback like a coach. Instead of, “good job,” you can say, “You folded the towels evenly. That’s going to help our bathroom look organized.” Now they are developing skills for folding and for complex awareness of what makes a thing good or a task successful.
Older Children and Teenagers
Older children and teenagers are asking the developmental question, who am I becoming? When we invite them into meaningful work with us, instead of just assigning it, it doesn’t feel like a punishment and it communicates something powerful. It tells them, “you are becoming someone I can count on.” They are not resentfully doing chores because we have said they owe us. Instead, they are doing it because we trust them and they trust us. That is a healthy relationship model to grow into.
And, speaking of relationships, while it is a natural part of this developmental stage to pull away from authority and want to spend more time with peers (in person or on social media), they still need us. When trust is the foundation of the relationship, they still want to talk with us. Ordinary chores like laundry are fabulous for this! Direct conversations and eye contact can be connection building, but at times they can be intimidating. Side by side chores lower the pressure. Eye contact and conversation become optional and periods of silence are natural. Sometimes, the deepest conversations happen when we are not looking directly at one another. All the while you are reinforcing what they’ve learned all long while doing laundry with you: real life matters, we can handle this, skills for planning and flexibility, problem solving, managing time, and considering the needs of others. Being responsible feels like a blessing rather than a burden.
Our Role with Any Age
There countless opportunities to support child development in every day life. Turning ordinary chores, like laundry, into extraordinary growth opportunities does not happen without us. These opportunities are powered by our presence, our personality, and our energy. Technology is valuable, and part of that value comes from using it to free us up to be present and bring our extraordinary souls into ordinary moments with our children.
More Info
Curious about things referenced? Check out these unsponsored links for more information:
Trust In Infancy
Stages of Development from Child Development Theorist Erik Erikson
- Erikson’s 8 Stages of Psychosocial Development Explained
- includes child and adult stages
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