What a busy week last week was!

Last week looked like this as these kids were put to work volunteered (actually, it was a little of both ) to help me clean our abode.

I told Justus to look tired or dramatic at different times depending on what pictures I was taking. This was his interpretation.

Children are capable of so much but sometimes we want to protect them from being overworked and the results are kids that don’t know how to work, don’t like to work and feel entitled. In other words, we aren’t doing our children any favors when we do everything for them. They should be contributors to our households.

5 reasons we should teach our children to help around the house

1. Children want to help when they are little.

Don’t miss this opportunity. They love to feel they’re helping mommy and training children when they are little is so much easier than trying to correct bad habits of laziness once they are older. Give your children some responsibilities, work with them and watch them blossom – especially when they’re little. It’s much more fun when mommy is working with them and during that time you can tie strings of fellowship – telling them Bible stories, singing children’s songs together or just listening to them talk to you. (They like to do that!)

3. Children will be happier with some responsibility.

I always feel best when I have accomplished something in a day. Although it may sound nice to have days with no responsibilities, after awhile it can feel very unfulfilling. Contributing to the household will give your children a sense of satisfaction. When daddy comes in the door at night, brag on your child and the help that he/she has given during the day and watch what happens. They will love feeling they did something valuable.

3. They are learning real life skills.

Do you know there are many kids who never learn some of the basics of cleaning? They have no clue how to clean or how to be clean. How much better it would be if they learned these skills while at home and in their childhood instead of moving out and being faced with this kind of learning curve and the other responsibilities that will come all at once.  And don’t forget, we are doing our future sons and daughters-in-laws a favor when we help our children know how to help and we can always use the brownie points!

4. Problem solving, organizational and thinking through to completion skills are all benefits.

How can I best clean this hard water stain? What steps do I need to do to complete this task? How can I complete this job more efficiently? Teach your kids to think through these steps and this pattern of thinking will carry over to other areas.

5. The benefits and rewards are coming.

Although you may have to take extra time teaching them these skills, in just a short while they will be pros at it and if it’s needed, they will be able to do these tasks on their own without you even being there. Remember though, they always enjoy it much, much more if you are there working with them.

And after all that cleaning?

Well, those same hard working kids enjoyed a week of time off!

I even managed to have a few days off, enjoying some day trips to historic towns around here with some new and old friends from Norway, along with my childhood friend.

And another trip to the Grand Canyon where we rented bicycles and rode along the rim. Great activity!

And we even had a couple who were on their honeymoon from the state of Kentucky drop in for an evening.

Be diligent now in the raising of your little ones and watch what happens.

Galatians 6:9 says, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

And the old saying, “many hands make light work”? Completely true.

Did you have responsibilities when you were a child? Do you agree that children should have chores?

And in this nervous age that we’re living in…  Today I got my mind made up to something, “I’ve just got to do it,” and tomorrow it’s a million miles from me; something has done cut in and done this and that. And you have a time, trying to keep your wits together. – William Branham

Tension and stress seem to rule the days for many of us. So many things to do, and of course, they should have been done yesterday. With all the gadgets and the conveniences of life, you would think our lives would have become more routine and relaxed but in contrast, it has caused us to be able to do additional things.  While our grandparents and great-grandparents who had very few conveniences could take times of rest, we, on the other hand, are trying to fit in more and more.

But as mothers and fathers we have a responsibility to try and keep, to the best of our ability, home life calm, restful and somewhat predictable.  Doing more than we are able causes us to become stressed and tense which sets an atmosphere around us of the same.  Then the children catch our mood and become irritable and out of sorts. And thus, we get on the merry-go-round.

We ourselves must have times of refreshment.

• Time spent with the Lord, being refreshed, rejuvenated and equipped to face the challenges ahead
• And we sometimes even need leisure time. (gasp!)

Here is what Charlotte Mason had to say in School Education – volume 3.  “Let the mother go out to play! If she would only have courage to let everything go when life becomes too tense, and just take a day, or half a day, out in the fields, or with a favourite book, or in a picture gallery looking long and well at just two or three pictures, or in bed, without the children, life would go on far more happily” -Charlotte Mason

How many times do we lay the blame of our children’s unhappy moods on them when really the children just picked it up from us?

How thankful I am that each day is a new beginning, a new start filled with fresh hope.  I am so thankful, too, that we are not left alone in the raising of our children but that God has a vested interest in each one of them.  He is working in them.

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Phillipians 2:13

As stay-at-home mom’s, we certainly could take advantage of the fact that we have the opportunity to do with our day as we will – to dally our day away not doing much.  But what happens when it’s 5:30 and the husband will be home in half an hour and supper’s not prepared?  We rush, we rush the children and we’re all feeling harried – all because we did not order our days properly.

A little forethought with planning would change the whole scenario.

(I know mealtimes might be a bad example just because if you have small children, mealtimes can be very trying. But maybe try to see the point I’m making and not dwell on the actual example. )

I am not writing this saying I have arrived. I wish I could say I have, but instead I am writing these things because I know that when they are practiced, my day is filled with rest, contentment and the joy of being a stay at home mom.

Time with the Lord.

My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. Exodus 33:14

Planning our day so that our duties can be done in an unhurried manner

You can’t plow a field simply by turning it over in your mind. -Gordon B. Hinckley

Leisure time when we find ourselves maxed.

Let the mother go out to play! -CM

Start with focusing on only one thing that you desire to change.

In a famous article published in 1983, Anya Bateman tells how she changed her life by focusing on only one thing she wanted to change and then doing it for 21 days.  For some of the habits she was trying to form, she kept a journal of her thoughts and excuses and anything else that came up that made her not want to keep her agreement with herself.

While working on forming a habit, we must be ever careful not to let ourselves or our children fail in the keeping of them.  We must be vigilant.

I know this firsthand.  For 3 months I faithfully exercised 5 days a week for 30 minutes.  Then our family left for a 2 week vacation and after 3 months of establishing this habit of exercise, all my resolve and commitment went out the window in that 2 weeks and I couldn’t get myself back into it.

You see, as I mentioned in Part I of Habit Training, you have formed pathways in your brain when you do something over and over.  When you initiate a new habit you begin forming new pathways but the old ones NEVER go away.  That is why I went back to my old habit of not exercising even after 3 months of diligence.

Charlotte Mason gives the example in her book, Home Education Vol. 1, of a little boy who the mother wants to have establish the habit of closing the door behind him.  She talks to her son concerning this, telling him she is going to help him remember by reminding him when he forgets. The little boy has trouble remembering in the beginning but mother reminds him in gentle ways and is careful not to let this become a source of contention between the two of them.

After about 20 times, the habit is starting to be instilled in Johnny and mother is quite delighted.  But then comes a pivotal moment in the forming of this habit.  Mother is feeling so happy that Johnny is finally consistently remembering, that she then allows herself to have a moment of pity for him.

‘Poor child,’ she says to herself, ‘it is very good of him to take so much pains about a little thing, just because he is bid!’ vol 1 pg 124

She doesn’t realize that Johnny is doing it because the habit is starting to form; she thinks he’s making the effort for her sake.

The day comes that Johnny forgets to shut the door, he realizes it and it makes him pause for a moment, but not enough to cause him to shut the door; he wonders if mother will call him back.  Mother is thinking how good he has been about shutting the door for so long and so she thinks, “I’ll let him off this once.”

Then Johnny leaves the door open again and when mother half-heartedly reminds him, he hears in her voice her lack of commitment and he makes the excuse that he’s in quite the hurry.  Mother lets him off until the next time when he makes another excuse that he’s going back out shortly, which he did 10 minutes later but he forgets to shut the door again.

In these few moments, mother’s work was undone and she will have to start all over again.

There are really only two steps to forming a new habit in your life and your children’s.

1.  Work on only 1 habit at a time.

2. Do the thing, never once letting it slide, never once letting yourself of the hook, never once letting the children not do the thing you have purposed they need to change.

Like Anya Bateman, you may want to keep a journal recording your thoughts as you are establishing your new habit.  At the very least, keep track on the calendar when you start and place a check mark showing you completed it each day.

Charlotte Mason made the correlation between habits and the rails that trains run on.  Here are her words.

 …just as it is on the whole easier for the locomotive to pursue its way on the rails than to take a disastrous run off them, so it is easier for the child to follow lines of habit carefully laid down than to run off these lines at his peril. –Charlotte Mason

Habits are a part of our everyday life in everything we do but are they good habits that we want to keep?  Maybe we want to consider changing some.  Let me list here some of the areas that we may want to focus our efforts.

Personal Hygiene – showering, brushing teeth, flossing, combing hair, shaving (for the boys – this is something my boys need help in!)

Physical Exercise – keeping our bodies strong and fit

Physical Environment – bedroom, schoolroom/school desk, house, yard

Dietary – eating more vegetables/fruit, not getting that second portion, saying no to so many sweets, losing excess weight

Spiritual – reading our Bible, praying, listening to tapes

Feeding the Mind – reading books that will encourage growth

Hobbies

and there are many more areas.

Why not mention a few areas that came to mind as you were reading this in the comments below?

Don’t be ashamed if you start with only a tiny baby step.  The goal is to break the old way of doing things.  If your goal is too lofty you might be setting yourself up for failure or discouragement.  But who am I to say?  If you have absolute resolve, and never let yourself slide, you can do it!

For myself, I have committed to the habit of exercise.  I am doing a baby step – 2 minutes on my Gazelle ski machine, 4 days a week. It’s a small step, I agree, but I knew I would make excuses if it was much bigger.

The next habit that I’m working on is (I’m breaking the rule of learning only 1 habit, I know. ) having my kids clean their school desks off at the end of the day.

Are you currently working on forming a new habit?

But I have also seen the benefit of good habits in my life.  Habits that were instilled in me as a child. They are such a part of me that I don’t have to think, I just do.  It requires no mental effort on my part because they are so engrained in my brain to do such and such. We all have those kinds of habits. If we had to think about everything we did and how to go about completing it, how wearisome that would be! So let’s be thankful for the good habits we do have.

Charlotte Mason realized the importance of habits.  She felt that habits, once engrained in a person, was stronger than 10 natures. What she meant by this was that no matter the nature of a child or its “bent” whether they were stubborn, selfish or forgetful, if you helped them form a habit and keep it, it would become stronger than any nature the child was born with.

Think about it for a moment.  What do you do that is so engrained in you that you cannot imagine not doing it?  Brushing your teeth? Flossing? Changing your bed sheets once a week? Exercising?

Now can you think of someone who does not have this habit?  Someone who would like to but just never seems to be able to get it together?

The reason we cannot get it together is because we have followed a different action for so long that our brain has developed pathways and according to this article  “while parts of those worn-in pathways can weaken without use, they never go away.”  And it is for this reason that you must guard yourself when forming a new habit.  You must never slip, not even once, or you’ve lost all the ground you had started to gain and you start falling back into those old pathways and therefore into the bad habit.

Then on the other hand everybody has habits that they don’t have to think twice about and it makes their lives simpler because there is no effort in the doing of them. And I’m thankful for that.  I’m thankful for the habits that were instilled in me as a child (well, okay, not ALL of them) because if some of these habits were not there, I would be overwhelmed with things I needed to learn.

But there are habits I have that I would like to change.

There are habits I would like to have that I don’t.  And the same goes for my children. There are habits I would like to form in them for their schooldays, their relationships, their health, etc.  But how do I go about it?

That, my friend, we’ll discuss in Part II.

What habits are you thankful for or what habits would you like to change?

Lately, I’ve really been wanting to see some change in me.  I don’t want to be a fault finding momma but instead one who encourages and supports my children. I’ve been praying and asking God to help me change.

I felt one day to watch To Train Up a Child by Michael Pearl. I love his insights into child training.

Anyways, I was so inspired by what he had to say concerning raising teenagers.  It really spoke to me and I want to share it with you in case you’re needing some encouragement in that area.

There were so many good things he said but I’ll just share a few of the main highlights for me.

If you don’t have control or if you haven’t won your child’s heart by puberty it will show up in what Mr. Pearl call’s pubermania.  Your child will start trying to exert his/her will.

You may say, “Don’t do that.”

He’ll say, “I will do that.”

You may say, “You can’t.”

He’ll say, “I can.”

Etc.

Your child has closed his soul off to you because you have hurt him.  You have taken information that you learned and used it to hurt him.

You must become attractive to your child.  Become the person you want your child to be.  If you want them to be positive, you must be positive.  If you want them to be loving, you must be loving.  In other words, how they are acting can so many times be a mirror of ourselves.

Is the God they see in you attractive or is it hypocritical and unloving?

Every child is attracted to love, joy and peace.

If you home’s atmosphere is caustic… STOP

Take a look at yourself… hard.  If you don’t like what you see in your child, you have only yourself to blame.  It all happened on your watch.

Whew, this can be very discouraging. I know.  But there’s hope if you are willing to accept the responsibility for where you are now.

Some things you can do to change your situation…

1.  Look at your child with eyes of love.  You can’t fool children; they know when you’re sincere.

2.  Start tying strings of fellowship with them.  Do things with them.  Honestly, I don’t feel like I manage this one very well.  I don’t really feel like doing things that boys like to do.  But something I did the other night was ask my son to come and talk with me for 15 minutes.  It was bedtime and a good time to have a conversation.  I had no idea what I was going to say and we stumbled around for awhile but then we got on to a Scripture verse he’s been meditating on lately.  It struck me hard but I was so thankful to hear it because I needed it.

“Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.”  Ephesians 4:29

That pretty much settles everything.  When we are negative with each other and our criticisms outweigh any good thing we might say, what do you think might happen to that relationship?  Are we building up or tearing down our homes, our spouses, our children with our words?

Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. Proverbs 14:1

“No one has ever been motivated to crawl out from under a pile of criticism to do better.” (Michael Pearl)  I really want to edify my children.  My negativity not only puts a wedge of distance between me and my child but it hurts and breaks the strings of fellowship.

If it is possible for there to be any positives to all of this, it is this…

My flaws must be brought out and exposed to the light so that I may seek forgiveness and be molded by my Lord Jesus into what He wants me to be.  I do not want to live my life ignoring or thinking the problem lies with everyone else instead of myself.  Knowing that all we take with us when we die is our character, I want my character to be changed here in this life.

This reminds me like nothing else that I need Him with me every moment to help me control that unruly member of my body – the tongue.

I want my kids to see Jesus in me.

It’s true.

I hardly believe it myself.

I keep thinking it will wear off.

Do you think it’s possible that it may not?  I don’t know but…

until then, I’m thrilllllled.

The first thing Justus and Audrey do in the morning is check out their chore boards.

There are some days that they’re more eager than other – I cannot tell a lie.

But overall I have kids who are eager to do their chores.

Even on Saturdays!  They ask me to give them jobs on Saturday’s, too.

Today I’m finally going to share with you how you can make your very own. It’s not rocket science which is exactly the kind of projects I like because I don’t do complicated craft projects very well.

II added a contrasting strip of cardstock paper and Mod Podged it to the top and bottom of the board. I used stamps for their initials at the top. On Justus’ chore board I stamped AM, PM, THANKS and a star but on Audrey’s I cut out pink cardstock and wrote on them because I thought it would help it to stand out more than Justus’. Now I wish I would have just stamped hers, too.

Close-up

To place the cup hooks in, we had to drill a small hole to help get the hooks to go in easier.

I used a program called Printmaster to make the money. Different colors for different denominations. 

Close-up of the $20 Family Money bill.

Chore cards made on Printmaster, cut out and laminated by using clear Contact paper.

I notice that my photography skills are a bit lacking.

Something to consider… While I’m having great success at the kids doing their chores in the morning, the pm jobs are a little different. I do have to remind them. I usually tell them about 1:00 and they have until 6:00 (supper time) to complete them. A lot of times they get distracted and need to be reminded again. I do try to keep the jobs very light  in the PM so that they don’t get “weary in well-doing.”

You can read about how we’re using these chore boards here.

Let me tell you about it.

Do you remember when Choreganizers came out several years ago?

It was basically a visual way for your children to do their chores.  Each child has a chart with 5 pockets and you put a chore card (a stack of chore cards come with Choreganizer) that has a picture in each slot. As the child did the chore, they then removed it from its slot and put it into a pocket at the bottom of the chart. You then paid your child a Dad dollar or Mom Dollar for every job they did. Once a week, you would then open the Chore Store and offer a variety of items that they could “buy”.  It could be time-related things, like play a game with mom & dad, go to the zoo, etc. or it could be actual items that you have purchased and placed in your “store” – it was all up to you what you wanted to offer at the store.

I used it when Seth and Zachary was small and of course they really liked it, and lately Justus and Audrey have been after me to do it with them.  There were a few things that I wanted to change.  I wanted more than 5 chores, for starters. Secondly, I wanted to individualize the chores that we need done for our house and thirdly, I wanted it to be more attractive than the charts the Choreganizer has with it.

So I started searching the web for some ideas and found these…  The one on the left is sold on Etsy by More Than a Memory AK and you can find a DIY tutorial to the one on the right at Today’s Fabulous Finds.

 So, I got to thinking how I could individualize mine and here is what I came up with.

Justus’s

Audrey’s

Here’s how our chore system works. There is an AM hook and a PM hook.  If there are chores that need to be done in the morning, they are placed on the AM hook. My kids have to have their morning jobs done by 10:30.  PM jobs can be done anytime after that.  As they complete their chores, they remove it from the hook and place it on the hook where the star is.  Each morning I come tally up the chores that were completed and hang Family Money where it says “THANKS”.

The stack on the left shows all the jobs I can pick from; the picture on the right gives you an idea of what they look like.  The ones on top are some I made after I had already printed up the others.

Every 2 weeks, we open up the “store” so that they can shop around. So far I haven’t purchased anything for the store except a couple of packs of gum. I knew the kids were trying to make money to take to the youth camp in Ohio, so I paid them cash for each chore completed. Originally each chore was going to be worth $.25 but that was adding up quick. Thankfully, Justus suggested I lower the price and we settled on $.10 each.  They are happy as can be about this, as was I!

There’s not too much to it, but I’ll share in a later post how I actually made everything.

shhh…

So, in lieu of my Weekly Review that I usually do on Monday’s, I thought I would tell you how our family does kitchen chores after each meal.  It works quite well with our family of 6 children.

First off I wrote down a list of jobs that needed to be done when each meal was over…

clear table

put food away

wipe off counters

sweep floor

load dishwasher

put food preparatory items away

wipe chairs down

I tried to think of enough jobs for my 5 older children.  My youngest was 4 at the time.

The job of wiping down chairs I assigned to my then-6 year old since the other tasks would be a bit more complicated.  I combined the job of clearing the table and putting food away since clearing the table is pretty cinchy. We then wrote down each job on a piece of paper and the kids drew one out of the cup.  This was now their chore until we drew jobs again a few months later.

Now when mealtime is complete,  everyone automatically does their job (except for my now-7 year old – gotta work on that still ).  To solve the problem of some of the children leaving the kitchen before their job was completed, I would set the timer for 15 minutes.  If they didn’t have it completed within that time frame, they would then be responsible for everyone’s duties next meal time including any hand washing which I usually did.  This was a good incentive for those that had trouble!

That’s how it’s done in our household which includes my boys and daughter.  It usually ends up being a time of discusion and I think it can build cameraderie since everyone is busy with their hands – having a responsibility.  It is really great, too, when they learn the different skills in the kitchen because there’s times when you just aren’t able to do it all and they are able to step in for you.  I think it teaches the boys to be thankful for the work that is done on their behalf and to show their appreciation (even though they may not realize it in the younger years) to mom by helping.  Also, be sure to tell your children how much you appreciate their help.

How do you approach kitchen jobs at your house?  Do you have children help in the kitchen?  What’s worked for you?  I’m sure everyone would appreciate any thoughts you might have on this.

Just a mom trying to raise thoughtful and helpful children…

In the video he says children should work with you before they know what work really is. If you wait until they’re old enough to really help you, you are sitting yourself up for grumbling and complaining. Children want to feel needed and enjoy working alongside you. For example, when you’re washing dishes, have them sit on the counter beside the sink with a plastic cup and scrubber so that they can help, too.

Today I decided to try that out with Audrey (3yo). I had a very wrinkled pillowcase that needed ironed and so I lowered the ironing board to her level so she could iron. She was delighted that it was her right height and that she was able to iron my pillow case. She told everyone in the family about what she had did. Of course, I was right there the whole time, helping her lower the iron to the case since it can be a bit heavy.

Why not let the children help you now while they’re so eager? Time spent together bonding (doesn’t that sound nice), working with your little ones and teaching them useful skills.

Here are some other things she’s been doing. I caught her folding this all on her own. She’s been helping me fold sheets, too. Russell (my dh) found her folding her nightgown and putting it away after she awoke one morning. Now ladies, this may be what girls just tend to do because I know my boys never folded anything unless they had to – even to this day (almost!). In other areas though, they are a big help to me and their daddy for which I am most grateful.