The Daily Lives of Amish Children
It’s not all work and no play for the typical Amish child, but it is much different from that of a non-Amish child’s day. Every single person in an Amish family is considered a productive member of the community, including the children. Depending on the age and gender of the Amish child, certain duties and responsibilities are required of them from sunup to sundown. In fact, everyone’s day starts well before the sun even has a chance to rise.
The day begins for most Amish families around five o’clock in the morning. This means that every member of the family gets up and completes their morning duties. Amish children all have their own household chores to perform, such as sweeping, making the beds, shoveling snow, feeding the farm animals, collecting eggs, or helping their parents with their morning chores. This can last for several hours each morning and must be completed before they have to get ready for school.
All Amish children are required to attend school from the first grade to the eighth grade. Amish children do not attend public schools, but instead go to a one-room school house that is located near their homes. Each morning Amish children walk to school and spend the majority of the day studying. Amish children learn to speak Pennsylvania Dutch when they are young, but when they go to school they also learn to speak English and German. They also learn the basics of reading, writing, and mathematics, just like other children their age. However, Amish schools also teach their children the things they’ll need to know to succeed in their Amish communities. Amish girls will primarily learn how to be good wives and mothers. They are taught how to cook, bake, sew, quilt, clean, raise children, and drive buggies. Amish boys are taught how to manage finances, prepare the fields, use tools, and drive a horse and buggy team.
In between their studies, Amish children are allowed to be creative and play throughout the day, all the while keeping within the strict beliefs of the Amish way of life. The Amish are allowed to play many of the same games that other children do, like baseball and soccer, but they are not played competitively. Amish schools do not promote the ideas of ambition, competition, and pride. They believe that every member of the Amish community has value and to pit one member against another, even during playtime, creates negativity and directs focus to the individual rather than the group. Therefore, competitive games are played solely for fun and exercise. Scores are not kept and everyone is encouraged to participate.
Creativity is also allowed in Amish schools and many children will learn to draw, make crafts, or write poetry. This is especially important in the months before Christmas where most Amish school children will put on a Christmas program that will include religious-themed play productions, poetry readings, caroling, and arts and crafts. The Christmas program is usually one of the most anticipated events throughout the year and the children are encouraged to do their best in making it fun for the entire community.
Amish children only attend school eight months out of the year. During the spring and summer months, they are required to help on the farms with the harvest. Amish boys will help their fathers in the fields, or wherever needed, in order to work together for the betterment of the community at large. Amish boys learn how use farm equipment and heavy tools in preparation for when they are old enough to start working. Since Amish children only go to school through eighth grade, they are expected to know how to become successful members of the working community by the time they are teenagers.
Amish girls will help their mothers in the home when not in school. They learn how to cook and clean for the family, as well as how to do the yard work and other chores that are required around the house. In addition, Amish girls learn a useful skill that will help them to make extra money for their families in the future. They might learn how to make Amish quilts and carry on the tradition of quilting into their adulthood. Amish quilts are highly valued outside the Amish community, so they might be able to sell their Amish quilts in the markets when they’re adults. They might also learn gardening, canning, or baking techniques which will help them create products that can also be sold at community markets.
Children are allowed time to play during the working months, but often the games they play serve a dual purpose. Safety games are played in order for the children to learn how to safely live on a farm. Farming communities come with a variety of different dangers that can easily cause harm to the children if they’re not careful. With large equipment moving and farm animals roaming around, Amish children need to learn early how not to get hurt. These safety games are an important part of life in an Amish community. Other recreational activities, such as darts, pony rides, skating, fishing, and ball games are all popular among Amish children and even the occasional adult.
In the evenings, after dinner has been eaten and cleaned up, the children will usually spend time with the family playing board games, reading, playing with dolls, quilting, making wooden toys, or any number of indoor activities. There are many Amish produced magazines and newspapers that the Amish subscribe to. Some are produced just for Amish children and teenagers and focus on the things that are important and interesting to them, such as quilting, farming, and things related to their school studies. Many Amish children are pen pals with other Amish children, as well as children who are outside the Amish community. Evenings might be spent writing letters to pen pals or other family members.
Finally, the sun sets and it’s time to get ready for bed. Since the Amish do not allow electricity in their homes, they are dependent upon gas or kerosene lighting. This generally limits the types of activities that they can participate in during the nighttime hours, so bedtimes are usually much earlier than those in non-Amish homes. The day will start before the sun rises the next morning anyway, so getting a good night’s rest is always important for the children of an Amish community.
