How Yucatec Maya Children Learn to Help at Home

Olga has observed her grandmother make tortillas on a regular basis. She remembers that at age 5, she took a small ball of masa (corn dough) and attempted to make her first tortilla. According to Olga, this tortilla looked more like a “flip-flop”; it was far from the perfect tortillas her grandmother always made. Now at the age of 9, Olga takes charge of running the household, which she does skillfully. Olga lives with her grandparents, as her parents moved to the biggest city in the peninsula, 2 h from their hometown, to work in the service sector. She regularly makes tortillas and prepares meals for herself and her grandparents – including cooking breakfast before going to school – as well as cleaning the house, running errands, and washing and ironing the family’s clothes. Additionally, on the weekends, she makes tortillas and washes clothes for her neighbors to earn some money to purchase her grandparents’ medication.

Olga’s extensive and crucial contributions to her family mirror the daily experiences of many Indigenous and Indigenous-heritage children in the USA, México, Guatemala, and other Latin American countries (Alcalá et al., 2014; Ames, 2013; Bolin, 2006; Coppens et al., 2014; Corona Caraveo, 2011; Gaskins, 2000; Mejía-Arauz et al., 2015; Remorini, 2016). In many of these communities, children are fully integrated into important and productive activities of the family and community.

According to these Indigenous communities, being integrated into all aspects of community life from an early age, first as observers and then as participants, being exposed to the manifold spheres of life and participating in adult activities, is what makes development possible (Bolin, 2006; Jiménez, 2015; Greenfield, 1972). Parents expect children to be attentive to their surroundings and take initiative when someone needs help (López-Fraire et al., 2020). In fact, many Mexican-heritage mothers expect their children to be acomedido, that is to help before asked (Alcalá et al., 2018).

In contrast, many children from middle-class non-Indigenous communities have fewer opportunities to observe and engage in work, as they spend more time segregated in child-focused activities (Morelli et al., 2003; Rogoff et al., 2010). At home, children from these communities might also find fewer opportunities to help, and parents might even find their young children’s helping attempts as unhelpful (Hammond & Brownell, 2018; Rheingold, 1982). For example, middle-class European American mothers tended to run errands or engage in household work when their toddlers napped or were entertained and regarded infants’ efforts to help as interfering with adult work (Coppens, 2015). As they get older, children seem to be reluctant to help and only help when there is some contingent reward or potential threats of losing privileges (Alcalá et al., 2014; Goodnow & Delaney, 1989; Klein et al., 2009).

These contrasting cultural differences in children’s contributions to household work have been well established, in both developmental and anthropological literatures (e.g., Bolin, 2006; Lancy, 2018; Ochs & Kremmer-Sadlik, 2013). Less is known, however, about how this process unfolds and how children view their own contributions to household work. Our study, grounded on sociocultural theories, investigates children’s ethnotheories about learning to help at home, particularly, looking at how Yucatec Maya children learn to contribute to family work.

The present study is grounded in the “Learning by Observing and Pitching-In” paradigm (LOPI; Rogoff, 2014; Rogoff et al., 2015) and the developmental niche framework (Super & Harkness, 1986). LOPI is a multifaceted learning paradigm in which the community organization grants children access to a wide range of activities and recognizes children’s contributions. LOPI seems to be particularly common in many Indigenous communities of the Americas, where learning often relies on observation, keen attention, and nonverbal communication. Learners are trusted to take the initiative to contribute, and their motivation to participate is fundamental to the learning process. The goal of the experts is not to instruct children but to accomplish the ongoing task, although they might guide and correct the child’s performance during the process to improve the work.

The LOPI framework is consistent with the general idea of a developmental niche, a cultural system that explains relationships between children and their cultural communities (Super & Harkness, 1986; Harkness & Super, 1992). The system comprises three components: physical and social settings of the child’s everyday life, childrearing practices, and parental ethnotheories. Parental ethnotheories are defined as cultural models of childhood and parenting constructed by parents as they frame their experience into that of their community. They have been accorded the central role of the developmental niche as these serve to guide parental perception and action, therefore orchestrating children’s physical and social environments and rearing practices. For example, children’s participation in family work provides opportunities to observe and participate in a way that fits with the developmental goals important in their community (Rogoff, 2003; Harkness & Super, 1992).

Similarly, children’s ethnotheories may be viewed as cultural models that children construct about themselves, their role, and their relationship with parents and overall, the adult world, which again, in many Indigenous communities, is not separate from children’s everyday activities. Current “top down” and adult-only ethnotheories about children’s learning would be incomplete as applied to Indigenous communities where LOPI is prevalent and learning tends to be a horizontal-collaborative endeavor.

Given that most of the research on ethnotheories is based on adult reports, our study takes an ethnographic approach to explore children’s ethnotheories of learning to help at home in two Maya communities of the Yucatán Peninsula, México. Studying children’s ethnotheories allows us to understand their conceptualization of their contributions as members of their communities, and it might also offer a window into how culture contributes to shape a uniquely human evolutionary characteristic like prosocial behavior, specifically in the case of helping (Poelker & Gibbons, 2019).

Anthropological research has extensively documented cultural variability in young children’s helping behaviors (for reviews see Lancy, 2016, 2018), but psychological research has only recently acknowledged the crucial role of social and cultural context in young children’s behavior (Cole, 1998; Dahl, 2015; Poelker & Gibbons, 2019; Rogoff, 2003). However, in both areas, most studies are still based on adult reports without considering children’s voices and direct experiences.

Furthermore, psychological research has been based on the lived experiences of children from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic societies (Henrich et al., 2010), using artificial laboratory tasks, standardized measures, behavioral checklists, and Likert scales. Cross-cultural studies have focused on middle-class urban and rural communities using similar measures and relying on comparisons between different socialization goals, classified as instantiations of broad cultural categories of individual autonomy and interdependence (Keller et al., 2006). The socialization goals guide adults’ behaviors towards children and inform expectations of children’s activities and abilities. For example, in a study with families in Delhi and Münster, toddlers’ helping behaviors were contingent on whether mothers praised them for helping or punished them for not helping (Giner Torréns & Kärtner, 2017). Likewise, a study with four agricultural villages near Belem (Brazil) assessed maternal socialization goals based on Likert scales and found a significant correlation between the socialization goal of learning to help others and children’s performance in a laboratory out-of-reach helping task (Fonseca et al., 2018). Furthermore, over half of the mothers agreed with the relational socialization goals and only about a third disagreed with autonomous socialization goals. These findings reveal the diversity in socialization goals that are present even in homogenous samples. Therefore, using pre-existing measures fails to capture the intricacies of cultural variance in rural samples that might be obtained when using a more ethnographic approach that allows participants to openly describe their socialization goals.

Cultural influences of prosocial behavior, including socialization goals, during childhood are reflected in the timing of particular prosocial behaviors (Hammond et al., 2015). For example, helping with household work happens earlier in some cultural communities – such as in the Efe community in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indigenous communities of the Americas – whereas expectations of children’s prosocial behavior seemed lower in some middle-class communities where children are often reluctant to help and only participated in simple chores contingent on rewards (Alcalá et al., 2014; Coppens et al., 2014; Bowes & Goodnow, 1996; Goodnow & Delaney, 1989; Klein et al., 2009; Ochs & Izquierdo, 2009).

Research on the timing of prosocial behaviors across communities seemed to be inconsistent and influenced by methodological approaches. For example, House et al. (2013) examined children’s prosocial behavior using a cost-sharing laboratory game and found a clear decline in prosocial behavior among children in six populations, including urban Los Angeles and horticulture communities in Namibia and Ecuador. This finding contradicts the increase in prosocial behavior reported in ethnographic studies with Indigenous communities (Bolin, 2006; Gaskins, 1999; Ochs & Izquierdo, 2009).

These findings suggest that young children across societies have the ability to develop prosocial skills, such as instrumental helping, comforting others, and sharing resources, but also that cultural practices, artifacts, and specific learning experiences play a role in the development of more culturally unique prosocial skills, including helping before asked or being acomedido (Callaghan et al., 2011; Köster et al., 2015; López et al., 2015; López-Fraire et al., 2020). Thus, it is important to look at cultural variations in children’s contributions to capture subtle differences across cultural models of development beyond middle-class children in Western communities without imposing formats – such as artificial laboratory tasks or Likert scales – that may be culturally irrelevant and fail to capture children’s actual prosocial skills (Hammond et al., 2015; Hepach & Herrmann, 2019).

Furthermore, children’s experiences and ethnotheories have been neglected in the literature, with few exceptions. For example, Coppens et al. (2014), asked children about their involvement in family household work and whether they helped on their own initiative. They found that children in an Indigenous-heritage community contributed extensively with initiative to household work, while children from a middle-class community helped at a lower extent and less often showed initiative. This indicates the need for further studies to untangle how children learn to help at home, their motivation to help, and their perspectives on their learning process.

Our study provides the space for children to voice their contributions and to reflect on how they learn to help at home. It explores how Yucatec Maya children become contributing family members by examining cultural differences in children’s contributions across two communities that maintain the use of the Maya language and have similar cultural practices. To better understand how children conceptualized their learning process at home, our study aims to address the following four goals:

1 to examine children’s extent of contribution to family work;

2 to explore the type of involvement and level of voluntariness when helping;

3 to describe the learning process at home; and

4 to assess children’s motivation to help.

The research settings included two Maya communities, Nunkiní and Chan Cah located in what is deemed the Maya area of the Yucatan Peninsula because language and culture are better preserved. In both, the majority of the population speak Maya and Spanish (92% Nunkiní and 85% Chan Cah; Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía [INEGI], 2010), and share similar cultural practices. On the other hand, these communities vary significantly in their schooling level and population. Located in the state of Campeche, 200 km from the capital, Nunkiní has a population of 5,859, of which 676 are children between the ages of 6 and 11 (INEGI, 2010). Almost 46% of the population have completed middle-school and high-school education. Economic activities include traditional agriculture (known as milpa making), commercial agriculture, cattle ranching, and beekeeping but an increasing number of young adults migrate to the Caribbean coast of Quintana Roo to work in construction and tourist services. The village is well known for the number of both men and women who had studied to become elementary teachers as well as for its biannual community-wide fiesta in honor of its patron saint, its elaborate carnival, and its multiple community fiestas/celebrations throughout the year.

Chan Cah is one of five sacred Maya ceremonial centers in Quintana Roo. It is located approximately 241 km south of Cancún and 149 km north of the state capital, Chetumal. In 2010, it had a population of 416 (65 children). Over 60% of the population have an elementary school education level, and only 21.7% have completed middle-school and high-school education (INEGI, 2010, 2015). Milpa making continues to be the main economic activity but it is usually complemented or even displaced by wage labor, especially in construction or tourist services in the Riviera Maya.

Similar to other Maya communities of the Yucatan Peninsula, when children are not at school, they are seen around town running errands, playing in groups, and carrying or walking together with a younger sibling. Depending on the time of the day, one is able to see both girls and boys helping with household chores such as feeding chickens in the backyard, sweeping the floor, washing dishes. From around 8 to 9 years of age, boys may accompany their father to their plots to help with agricultural labors or feed the cattle.

Our sample included 38 bilingual (Maya/Spanish) children (19 females and 19 males). Half of the participants were recruited from a general elementary school in Nunkiní (ages 8–10, mean = 8.8) that served more than 360 children from first to sixth grade and where instruction was conducted exclusively in Spanish. Participants’ mothers in Nunkiní had an average of 11.6 years of schooling. The other half of the participants were recruited from an Indigenous, multigrade, rural, bilingual (Spanish and Maya) elementary school in Chan Cah (ages 7–12, mean = 9.8) that serves 48 children from first to sixth grade. Participants’ mothers in Chan Cah had an average of 7.5 years of schooling.

Data were collected from September 2015 to June 2016 and included ethnographic observations and semistructured interviews with children in Spanish. Verbal informed consent was obtained from parents (written informed consent is not customary in this community), and children’s verbal assent was recorded at the beginning of the interviews.

Ethnographic observations were carried out throughout the entire field work; thus, we were able to observe children doing different activities during the three-day weekly stays in the community as well as to participate in community events and celebrations. Direct observations of participant children at home were not included in the research protocol since they are time-consuming and even in cases that do not require living in the child’s home, it is necessary to expend a significant amount of time with the family before it gets used to having a guest and resumes its usual daily life. Even though observing participant children helping with household chores is contingent upon the time of day, we put special attention when we visit each home to interview their mother.

The first and second author also worked with children in their school in activities that included art workshop, traditional dance classes, sport activities, and a local science fair. For example, they led an art activity with children asking them to draw those elements or events in their community that they are proud of and would like outsiders to know more about. The time staying in the communities and participating in school activities facilitated our establishment of rapport with children. By the time the interviews started, children felt comfortable with our presence and were willing to share their experiences. Field notes were also used to develop the interview protocol.

The interview protocol, available upon request (adapted from Alcalá et al., 2014; Coppens et al., 2014), examined children’s contributions to family work, their process of learning to help at home, and their reasons for helping. At the beginning of the interview, we asked participants to describe the work they do at home before and after school, then presented children with a list of household chores common in the community and asked them if they had done any of those. The list facilitated the recall of all the activities done regularly, to aid in an accurate account of children’s chores. Once children had reported all of their chores, we asked whether they help on their own initiative or whether adults ask them to help. Out of the tasks reported, we identified the most complex task – based on level of skill and caution needed to carry out the work independently – (e.g., washing the dishes, a level 3 task) and asked participants how they learned to do that task and why they helped.

Children in both communities were interviewed at school. After school principals and teachers had granted us permission to conduct the study, the children were called one by one out of the classroom to be interviewed in a small, shaded area next to the school yard, without being interrupted by other school activities or other children.

Children’s reports were coded through a series of cycles to identify frequencies and prevalent patterns in their responses and to better understand their lived experiences (Rogoff & Angelillo, 2002; Rogoff et al., 2018). After reading through the interview transcriptions multiple times, we created a preliminary list of codes; the final coding scheme included the following four broad categories with three of them having subcategories (11 in total).

Extent of Contribution. Children’s level of contribution was quantified using a 3-point scale based on the level of difficulty and skill needed to complete the work. For example, a level 3 would require skill and caution to prevent accidents (e.g., cooking, sibling caregiving), while a level 2 would require some skill but not as much judgment (e.g., washing dishes, tending livestock). Level 1 would be any simple task that requires little judgement (e.g., sweeping, clearing the table, putting toys way). Children received an overall helping score adding all the tasks reported based on the level of complexity.

Type of Involvement. Children’s responses were coded into four nonmutually exclusive categories that vary in level of voluntariness:

initiative: the child voluntarily takes the initiative to help, provides help on a regular basis;

request: the child only helps when adults explicitly ask them to do specific tasks;

reminder: an adult reminds the child to do the work and the child does work on a regular basis;

rewards: the child only helps to obtain some type of reward (e.g., pocket change, being allowed to go outside to play, watch television).

Learning to Help at Home. We asked children to explain how they learned to do the most complex household task they reported. Their responses clustered around three main themes:

taking initiative to observe and pitch in: as children observe adults work, they become interested and take the initiative to help, and initiate their learning process;

demonstration/correction while pitching-in: while helping, children ask clarifying questions or ask for demonstrations to improve their performance; verbal instruction might be used strategically to support the children’s performance;

observing:children learn by paying attention during ongoing work but without direct involvement in the work at that point.

Motivation to Help. After children had explained what they do at home and how they have learned to help, we asked them what motivates them to help at home. Children’s responses included a set of explanations on their views of work including the following:

shared responsibility:children notice when help is needed and help to get work done and to relieve others from work, such as when parents are ill, tired, or unavailable;

like to help: children explicitly state they help because they just like to help;

help requested: children help only when asked to help;

avoid being scolded: children help only to avoid physical punishment, being scolded, or being viewed as lazy.

Primary coding was done by the first and third authors. A bilingual research assistant, unaware of the study’s objectives, simultaneously coded one third of the data for reliability, an acceptable practice in qualitative research (McDonald et al., 2019). Reliability between the blind coder and the main coder was calculated using Person’s r correlation for the quantitative contributions scale (r = 0.91). The interrater reliability for the qualitative analyses was calculated based on percent agreement, ranging from satisfactory (85%) to excellent (100%), with the exception of one subcode (shared responsibility 77%). Disagreements were resolved via discussions among the coding team, leading to corrections and clarification of the codes until the team reached consensus.

We conducted a series of statistical analyses comparing the 11 subcategories between communities, since there were differences in schooling both overall and between mothers as well as in main economic activities in the communities. Given that subcategories were nominal variables, we ran a series of χ² tests to assess the differences across communities. To explore any gender and community differences in extent of contribution, we conducted a 2 (gender) × 2 (community) factorial analysis of variance.

Children in both communities reported high levels of contributions to their families. The overall average helping score, based on the 3-point scale, was 18.6, ranged from a minimum score of 10 to a maximum score of 42, which included preparing food, washing dishes, washing the family’s clothes, running errands, among other tasks, with no significant differences across communities (Chan Cah mean = 17.21, SD = 4.18; Nunkiní mean = 18.83, SD = 5.99, t(27.39) = –1.39, p = 0.18). However, a significant main effect of gender was found (F(1, 33) = 4.35, p = 0.045), with female participants helping significantly more (mean = 19.8, SD = 5.2) than male participants (mean = 16.3, SD = 4.6) in both communities. In general, girls reported more high-complexity work (50 level 3 tasks across all participants) than boys (with a total of 41 level 3 tasks reported). The most frequent types of level 3 tasks reported by all girls and most of the boys (73%) were sibling caregiving and helping relatives with family work (Table 1).

Children underreported their contributions during the free recall portion of the interview but reported more comprehensive accounts once the list of chores was presented. For example, Soledad (CC¹, age 10) only reported three different tasks during the free-recall portion. Yet when we presented the chore list, she reported participating in nine additional tasks, ranging from mopping the house to working in the milpa (corn fields) with her parents, and had a total helping score of 22. Similarly, Gregorio (N², age 9) only reported helping with washing the dishes but reported nine additional tasks when the list was provided. Likewise, Indigenous-heritage children in Mexico appeared to “downplay” their contributions in interview reports (Coppens et al., 2014). Next, we look at how children become involved in household work.

Most participants in both communities reported taking the initiative to help on a regular basis without needing adults’ reminders or requests (N 63% and CC 79%). There were no statistical differences across communities on the level of initiative in helping (χ² (1, N = 38) = 0.13, p = 0.72) or in the number of level 3 tasks (level 3 tasks χ² (1, N = 38) = 2.13, p = 0.14)³. Helping on their own initiative requires children to observe ongoing activities, notice when help is needed, and know how to manage their activities as they develop ownership of the work. This was illustrated by Soraya’s (N, age 8) after school routine: “I get home and do my homework and I already know what [chores] to do. My mother doesn’t have to tell me.” Similarly, Olga (N, age 8), who had the highest helping score (42), reported taking the initiative to cook breakfast for her and her grandparents before going to school and basically running the household.

Helping Based on Explicit Requests. This was the second most common form of help reported in both communities (N 47% and CC 37%). In this case, children do not show initiative but only help when explicitly asked by an adult. For example, Ana Rosa (N, age 9) helps by clearing the table, sweeping, making tortillas, and running errands, but only helps because her “mother told” her to do so. In this case, Ana Rosa did not voluntarily offer to help and was not attentive to provide help as needed.

There were other less prevalent forms of contributions unique to each community. Only children in Nunkiní reported helping to avoid reprimands (16%), while only children in Chan Cah reported helping based on reminders (11%). When participants reported their contributions, regardless of type, they also explained that children do what they can with the strength they have, acknowledging that even young children can contribute with tasks that are within their physical abilities, but clearly stating that children should not be forced to do work that can stunt their physical development. This reflects children’s advanced understanding of work as developmentally appropriate. Next, we explore the question of how children know how to help and when to pitch in.

We found statistically significant differences in the way children learned to help at home, with most participants in Nunkiní (89%) reporting learning by observing and taking the initiative to collaborate in ongoing work, while only half of the participants reported this in Chan Cah (54%), χ² (1, N = 38) = 6.27, p = 0.01. Children’s integration into family activities allows them to observe others work and supports children’s interest and initiative to pitch in, resulting in the development of new skills and roles. For example, Diego (N, age 9) reported that he learned to make tortillas by observing his mother and also by directly engaging in the task. Similarly, Flor (N, age 9) stated, “I saw how my mother was working and I started to work as well,” and Sandra (CC, age 11) reported, “Helping my mother, that’s how I learn.”

Adults’ goals were not to teach children but to accomplish the task at hand, with children strategically “inserting” themselves into the ongoing work. For example, Jocelyn (N, age 8) reported that when her mother was taking care of her siblings, she started doing it as well, and that is how she learned. In some cases, children learn by observing but before they pitch in, they explicitly announce to adults that they want to help or ask adults to let them help. Arlett (N, age 9) reported, “when I saw my aunt make tortillas, I told her, ‘aunt can I help you?’ and I started making tortillas and I was able to do it.” Likewise, Dulce (CC, age 8) reported, “I started to say to [my mother] that I wanted to help, and I started to learn.”

The household organization supported children’s opportunities to learn by observing others, as children often observed parents, siblings, and extended family members. Karen (CC, age 10) reported that she learned to take care of her baby cousin when she saw her aunt changing the baby’s diaper. Children like José (CC, age 11) often learn by paying close attention to what their siblings are doing. He reported, “I learned by observing how my sisters work.”

Learning with Demonstration and Correction. Learning by observing during ongoing work also goes along with strategic instruction and correction. This approach to learning at home was significantly more frequent in Chan Cah (77%) than in Nunkiní (42%), χ² (1, N = 38) = 5.40, p = 0.02. Similar to LOPI, learning depends on children’s observation of ongoing work and their initiative to help – but in this case, children explicitly request information, demonstration, or instruction from others. Often children ask a clarifying question related to some aspect of the work or adults may demonstrate the task such as demonstrating how to put a tortilla in the griddle. In some cases, adults would literally “hold” the child’s hand to illustrate how to do certain tasks. María del Rosario (N, age 9) explained that when she was 6 years old, “My grandmother took my hand and she showed me how to do this and that.” Bryan (CC, age 11) also reported, “My father showed me, I saw him using it” and added how his mother showed him how to make tortillas.

Learning based on adult demonstration shows that observation goes seamlessly with instruction in context intentionally paired with strategic verbal guidance. Soledad (CC, age 10) also mentioned that when her mother was washing the dishes she stated, “this is how you wash the dishes” – without further instructions or explanation – signaling Soledad that this is important, and she needs to pay attention. Now Soledad does the dishes on her own when her mother has to travel to the nearby town.

There were no significant differences in the frequency of learning by observing adults work but without direct helping at that moment. This was the least common form of learning reported by children in both communities (N 42%; CC 38%). This requires children to constantly observe ongoing work and memorize the task for later use. In describing how she learned to wash her clothes, Citlali (CC, age 10) reported that her grandmother showed her how to wash her clothes, but she did not take the initiative to help at that moment. She stated, “It’s because my grandma started telling me, and it just settled in my head and that is how I did it.” Citlali’s grandmother would tell her to pay attention to how she was washing the clothes, and Citlali eventually memorized it. Gregorio (N, age 9) also reported learning by observing without pitching in, as he watched his mother make tortillas, stating that, after many observations, he understood how to do it and could explain how he makes perfect tortillas. Likewise, Kimberly (N, age 8) reported, “I saw my mother and I learned. Everything I learn [is] by observing.”

Furthermore, Yohana (CC, age 11) reported observing how her mother bathed her baby brother and, after a year, she started bathing her brother on her own. Children do not engage in the activity right away; they pay close attention to the process and later are able to do the work without adult instruction or supervision. Adults create the contexts that allow children to observe work. They might urge children to pay attention to work, but children are not forced to help. They eventually develop the initiative to recognize when there is work that needs to be done and they simply do it.

We asked children why they helped at home and the most common reasons for helping were: helping with shared responsibilities and helping because they like to help.

Shared Responsibility. Most children in Nunkiní (89%) reported helping to contribute to family work because it is everybody’s responsibility, while less than half of participants reported this in Chan Cah (42%), χ² (1, N = 38) = 9.47, p < 0.01. In other words, children in Nunkiní were more likely to be motivated to help based on a shared view of work, highlighting the fact that everyone’s contributions are valued, regardless of extent of involvement or expertise. Work is often done collaboratively and is rarely an individual/isolated activity. For example, Edward (CC, age 10) describes how his family works together cleaning the backyard: “Sometimes, I pulled the weeds in the yard, while my mother sweeps, and I pick the trash up.” Everyone has a role to play, no matter how small, and all contributions are important.

Children often demonstrated their understanding of this shared responsibility when they noticed others’ physical efforts and took the initiative to take over the work. For example, when adults were unable to work – they were tired or ill – children noticed their physical changes and often stepped in to help. Soledad (CC, age 10) stated, “My mother’s foot hurts and that is why I help.” Likewise, Daphne (N, age 10) reported that she helps “because sometimes they [their parents] go somewhere and they can’t do [the work].” Additionally, children often reported helping to prevent their mothers from getting tired, or to prevent them from having too many things to do, especially when they come home after a long day at work. This was the case of several mothers that worked outside the home in Nunkiní and children were able to make their own personal judgments of when to help, without any adult requests or supervision.

Often, children noticed when work had accumulated and, without needing adult directives, took the initiative to complete the work. Perla (CC, age 11) mentioned, “When the dirty dishes are all piled up, I go and wash them.” Along the same lines, Diego (N, age 9) reported, “[I help] because work tells me to [help].” These reports show that for some children, their motivation to help is not contingent on adults’ requests or external rewards but is based on their understanding that their contributions matter to the well-being of their families and the functioning of the households. This reflects children’s sophisticated understanding of their role in the family, their meta-awareness of the needs of others, and their conceptualization of work.

About half of the participants in Chan Cah (53%) and only one child in Nunkiní (5%) reported helping because they simply like to help, χ² (1, N = 38) = 10.36, p < 0.01. This category, albeit the second-most prevalent, reflects a new approach to helping at home in which children contribute simply because they enjoy helping and working alongside others. As stated by Edward (CC, age 10) and Johan (CC, age 11), respectively, “I like to help my parents” and “I help because I love my mother and I like to help.”

There were no differences in regard to the less frequent reasons for helping: helping by requests (N 11%; CC 10%) and helping to avoid being scolded or viewed as lazy (N 10%; CC 5%). However, the few children who reported helping to avoid being scolded or viewed as lazy also reported helping on their own initiative with sibling caregiving and other household tasks. Helping to avoid being scolded or to protect their reputation and not be viewed as lazy, was only reported when asked why they help and not when describing their extent of contribution.

This study examined Yucatec Maya children’s ethnotheories of learning to help at home by exploring how they learn to help and conceptualize their own learning process, and their reasons for wanting to help. Children in both communities contributed to a similar extent to family work by preparing meals, caring for siblings, and, in some cases, running the household while their parents were unavailable. Most participants helped on their own initiative and developed ownership of the work without needing adults to request or manage their help. On the other hand, children’s household contributions and level of initiative did not vary based on maternal schooling years, while in other communities, mothers’ interactions with their children changed with just a small increase in schooling over one generation (Chavajay & Rogoff, 2002; Mejía-Arauz et al., 2015). This suggests a possible pattern of stability in these two Yucatec Maya communities with respect to helping practices and also fits with prior research on helping with initiative in Indigenous and Indigenous-heritage communities even after families had immigrated to the USA (Alcalá et al., 2014; Coppens et al., 2014; Correa-Chavez et al., 2016; Gaskins, 2000; Rogoff, 2003).

Nevertheless, there was a significant gender difference. Girls in both communities contribute with more complex tasks than boys, which may reflect the Yucatec Maya division of family labor (Gaskins, 2009) and its gendered spaces. The household includes activities at home and in the back patio, or solar, which are the female space. The milpa is the male space. Since it is located outside the community and boys attend school, they do not have constant access to milpa work, except for weekends and school vacations. Furthermore, boys start accompanying their father to the milpa when they are 8 or 9 years of age, thus it is likely that not all participant boys have had the opportunity to do so. Lastly, in these and other Yucatec Maya communities it is common for fathers to leave their hometown in search of work. They therefore spend less time at home, and often stop working on the milpa, further limiting children’s opportunities to observe and pitch in to traditional male work. In contrast, when boys are at home, they have more opportunities to observe others work and to learn, including female tasks, such as making tortillas. Several boys in our study reported having observed their mothers make tortillas and learning by observing. Often boys are reluctant to help with making tortillas, but if there are no other children or helpers, they will do it, even if they do not like it.

Our study also extended previous findings by centering children’s views on how they learn to help and distinguished three slightly different approaches to learning that depended on children’s initiative and interest in helping but also varied in the level of adult guidance and instruction sought by the child. Maya children reported learning to help by observing others, getting interested in the work, and taking the initiative to pitch in, with some variability in the prevalence of these modes of learning. In Nunkiní, children more often learned by observing and taking the initiative to collaborate, while in Chan Cah, children were more likely to learn with adult demonstration and correction. Children reported being attentive to evaluate their performance and often asked adults for clarification or to demonstrate how to do certain aspects of the activity. In both cases, the learning process was initiated by children, knowing when to ask adults and other experts for help to improve their current performance. According to our participants, children can learn to help if they are interested in the task and understand the needs of the group. In this way, children are able to learn on their own, together-but-separate as they observe others work (Paradise, 1994). Lastly, participants in both communities reported a similar prevalence of learning by observing without engaging in work.

Learning to help in these communities is done with a higher goal to contribute to the well-being of the group and not just learning to acquire a new skill. The goal here is to help when the need arises, transforming the children’s role in the family. For example, when Maya children learned to use medicinal plants, they also understand the new responsibility they have acquired and the cultural expectation to help ailing community members when needed (Jiménez-Balam et al., 2019). Through helping, children position themselves as learners, initiate their own learning process, and redefine their role in the family (Sinha, 1999).

With the primacy of work in children’s daily lives (Bazyk et al., 2003; Gaskins, 2000), children learn new tasks and gradually develop more complex skills. Family work is conducive to the social organization of children’s activities and orchestrates their learning process. When work becomes a fundamental element of children’s lives, learning to help is a natural consequence. In many Indigenous communities, work is viewed as the medium that not only makes development possible but also dignifies humans (Cardoso Jiménez, 2015), a developmental goal common in many Indigenous Mesoamerican communities (Fernández, 2015). This contrasts significantly with middle-class children’s lack of involvement in productive activity and minimal contributions to household work (Goodnow & Delaney, 1989; Klein et al., 2009; Ochs & Izquierdo, 2009).

Motivation to help with household work was also examined in both communities. The majority of children in Nunkiní reported helping because they view their participation in household work as a responsibilitydistributed among the group and all family members are expected to help. However, in Chan Cah, most children helped simply because they like to help. For many Maya children in this study, helping with household work was crucial in becoming a person, a competent and responsible community member, highlighting again the key interdependence of helping with initiative as children construct their intersubjectivity of their role in the family. In a sense, children’s sense of belonging to the group also supported their interest in learning to help at home. These results fit with previous studies that report Indigenous and Indigenous-heritage children being motivated to help because they see themselves as part of something larger than themselves, as part of their family group (Coppens et al., 2016). In contrast, in some middle-class communities, children’s motivation to help is dependent on receiving an allowance and avoid aversive consequences (Alcalá et al., 2014; Hammond et al., 2015).

Prosocial behavior is the result of a complex and dynamic relationship between the individual and environmental processes (Köster & Kärtner, 2019; Rogoff, 2014). Our study responds to the pressing need for research with diverse communities and from diverse methodologies in order to address cultural variation in socialization practices and ecological factors related to prosocial behavior (Callaghan & Corbit, 2018; de Guzman et al., 2014). This study on learning to help at home represents one instance of prosocial behavior and provides an opportunity to understand children’s views and motivations to help others (Bowes & Goodnow, 1996). This approach allows us to consider children as capable of developing their own ethnotheories of learning to help.

Overall, our findings fit with the LOPI paradigm (Rogoff, 2014), where learning is viewed as a transformation of children’s role in the household and the developmental niche framework that highlights the way children’s social and physical environments are arranged to support children’s development as competent family and community members. However, very few studies have focused on understanding children’s participation in family work (Coppens et al., 2014) but have not examined children’s ethnotheories of learning to help at home, their approach to learning to help and their motivation to help. Children’s reports illustrated that being acomedido or helping on their own initiative, when they noticed help is needed or as a child put it “because work tells me to [help],” is central to learning by observation. Experts’ instruction and correction goes along in a seamless way, as children contribute without interfering with the task or interrupting the flow of the activity (López et al., 2015).

Adults scaffold children’s interest in household work by directing their attention and guiding their contributions in response to children’s requests and interest in learning to help. This gradual and continuous learning process was initiated by the child and supported by the household’s organization. It shows the interdependence between children’s access to work and practices such as observing and collaborating with initiative. When observing adults work, children offered to help and asked adults to “show” them how to do certain chores or to correct some aspect of the task. When adults engaged in demonstration or correction, they were not trying to teach the children but remained “fundamentally wedded to the task,” similar to other Indigenous communities such as the Zapotec in Oaxaca (Sinha, 1999, p.6) and Tzotzil Maya children (de León, 2017). The LOPI paradigm and developmental niche framework, but particularly children’s ethnotheories from within the developmental niche, allow us to understand cultural and gender variations in the way children learn to help at home.

In sum, children in this study reported being motivated to work alongside adults collaboratively towards a shared goal and that everyone pitches in as a responsible member of their family. This inclusive-collaborative approach to household work seems to be a precursor for children’s development of responsibility, to conceive family work as a shared endeavor, and to take the initiative to learn to help. The ability to learn by observing, noticing when help is needed and understanding when it is appropriate to help without interrupting the activity, is crucial in children’s development, as these are considered critical 21st-century skills for all children (Pellegrino & Hilton, 2013; National Academies of Science, Engineering, & Medicine, 2018). The school setting should embrace these differences in children’s expertise of learning by observing and collaborating rather than penalizing children for not fitting into the school practices of verbal instruction and adult-managed learning. Children in this study also demonstrated their metacognitive abilities, their ability to understand and reflect on their own learning process, something that is not often considered as common or even possible at this developmental stage. Overall, what is desirable for children to learn and how this is learned varies by culture and deserves further study from both children and adults’ perspectives using ethnographic approaches.

We are grateful to our participants for allowing us to learn with them, and to the teachers and school principal, who allowed us to recruit participants in their schools, and to research assistants Jennifer Carranza, Luis E. Cahum, Oscar Ek May, Melissa R. Pech Kumul, and Julio Payan. We thank Andrew D. Coppens and Carrie Lane for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Portions of these findings were presented at the 2017 conference of the Society for Research in Child Development, Austin, TX, and the 2016 Conference of the Jean Piaget Society, Chicago, IL, USA.

Informed consent was obtained from parents, and verbal assent was obtained from children prior to the interview and again at the beginning of the interviews. Written informed consent from adults is not customary in these cultural communities. In addition, school officials (principal and teachers) approved the project and interview protocols prior to allowing us to recruit participants from their respective schools.

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Funding for this research came from the UC MEXUS-CONACYT Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (to L.A.) and a research grant # CB-2013-01/221071 from CONACYT (to Aurelio Sánchez Suárez and M.D.C.M., project on Yucatec Maya knowledge on vernacular architecture).

L.A. wrote the first draft, drafted the early conceptualization of the study design, data collection, coding, and analysis. M.D.C.M. contributed to early conceptualization, data collection, analysis, and wrote sections of the manuscript. Y. S. F. contributed during the data processing and analysis stages. All authors contributed to manuscript revisions, read, and approved the submitted version.

All data generated or analyzed during this study as well as the coding materials and protocols are available upon request. Further enquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.