Summer is here, so basically my house is a disaster area. Despite the fact that we have the kids do chores each day I seem to go to bed each night amidst an amazing amount of clutter and mess. This is such a quandry to me, because I feel I've spent ALL of our summer so far playing drill seargant when it comes to the kids and their daily chores. I've long been an advocate for the idea of raising kids that can take care of themselves, so we have for some time expected the kids to clean up after themselves and contribute to the general "tidy-ness" of the house (bathrooms, weeding in the garden, it's all about teaching them how to do this for themselves some day...). Why is it that when the day is over, and I feel I've spent most of it hounding my kids to clean things or fold things or deliver things to their proper places, I see all around me a royal mess just waiting to be cleaned or folded or delivered the next day?
The kids are roused at 7 a.m. each morning so we can have some family time before John leaves for work (we are the religious type, so we read scripture for a minute or two, have a prayer as a family and just try to build unity for 15-20 minutes each day, does wonders I tell ya). The kids have a list of chores they are responsible for each day; 4 solid daily tasks(the regular make your bed, pick up your room, dress yourself and practice the piano) and then 2-3 that change day to day or week to week(like clean and vacuum the den or clean a bathroom or weed a portion of the vegatable garden). These jobs could be finished, complete, sionara to the work for the day in about 90 minutes (may sound like a hard grind for little munchkins, but they can change laundry loads and empty dishwashers and I'm utterly pleased with this fact). It usually takes them until 1-2 p.m. to actually complete the tasks. INSANE I tell you, how they drag these mundane jobs out for hours on end. They act utterly punished, defeated and obstinate most mornings, and I feel like the most loathing creature on the planet as I try to remind them to work faster and just get it over with. Love summer, I do; but I hate this part of it for sure. It seems such a horrific waste of time for all of us that they putz around the house instead of "bustin' a move" and getting these little jobs crossed off their to-do lists for the day so they can be lazy and care free and feel like summer is acutally fun...
Just wish I could open the young minds to the concept of efficiency; they'd have so much more time to play and I'd have so much more time to do my own chores instead of wandering around supporting their lengthy efforts each and every day. If anyone out there has ideas on how to incite speed in the family work place I'm all ears. My summer is so far piddling away as I encourage my kids to finish their little jobs sometime before the sun sets on their days of summer fun!
6 comments:
chores have only ever worked around my house with young kids if I turn it into a game of some kind. any kind. either a game or a party. take laundry: when they were little, i'd announce that we were going to have a "folding party". I would put dixie cups of lemonade on a silver tray, set it in the area we were folding, and after working hard sorting/folding for a few minutes, we'd celebrate by drinking our cups on the fancy tray. they did this for a long time before one day figuring out that drinking lemonade in a dixie cup from a silver tray whilst folding clothes didn't constitute much of a party. On to the next big idea :-)
Still, Katie, it's really hard to think of you as an ogreish drill sargent hounding those adorable kids all day. and I highly suspect your house isn't anywhere NEAR as disasterous as you've convinced yourself it is. Tomorrow will tell! ;-) Can't wait to see you.
♥
Julia
wHAT IF YOU SET A TIME LIMIT? IF THEY MET OR EXCEED (GO UNDER) THE TIME, THEY GET TO OPT OUT ON SOMETHING LITTLE, LIKE ONE SONG/WARM UP FROM PIANO PRACTICE. IF THEY EXCEED THE TIME LIMIT THEN ADD MORE SONGS OR ANOTHER CHORE. YOU ARE BETTER AT ALL OF THIS THAN I AM - I AM SURPRISED I AM TRYING WITH ADVISE! GOOD LUCK - I CAN'T GET IT STRAIGHT HALF AS OFTEN AS YOU DO. LOVE YOU - MANDEE
My kids do the exact same thing...Only it takes Aspen until dinner time to finish hers. But here's a couple of things that I have noticed that work for me.
1. Get a timer and do a speed drill...Try having everyone in the same room doing it together, you included. Just tell them that they can have a five minute break when the timer goes off. Give them a treat or have a 5 minute dance party with some really loud rockin' music and then do another speed drill. (I like to do a 15 minute drill--you can almost get all the dishes done in that time.)
2. Have a contest with the speed drill...see if you all can do a chore faster than the last time. Keep a chart on the fridge and graph your times. Give award ribbons to improvers!
3. I used to try to spread the chores out during the week for my kids. But I've found that they would rather have one long chore day during the week (like friday or Saturday) and have longer play times on the other days than have a medium amount of work everyday.
4. Do themed cleaning days...outdoor chores on Mondays, bathrooms on Tuesdays, vacuuming on wednesdays. If everyone is doing the same chores and doing them together they tend to go faster.
5. You might try resigning yourself to the fact that they won't work as fast if you aren't working with them. I wish my kids would do their chores while I do mine and then we could all be done. It seems like the logical thing to do. But it just doesn't happen. But they do go faster when we all work together.
6. Lastly, enjoy the summer with the kids. If you spend all your time cleaning, then all you do is clean. The laundry will still be there tomorrow, and the floor will just get dirty again. Having it spotless everyday is not worth the effort and all the missed opportunities to play with your kids. I guarantee that they will remember that you had 5 minute dance parties and ran through the sprinklers with them and let them eat cereal out of plastic cups outside on the trampoline because all of the bowls and spoons were dirty more than that your kitchen was immaculate everyday.
Remember that summer is your vacation too (from getting up early, chauffering to soccer, ballet and school, and having to go to bed when it is still light out). I find that things go better when I'm a little more relaxed too.
Good luck!
sorry for the monster comment
I love the book How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk--good ideas about getting them to complete their chores. You are doing them a favor in the long run!
We'll keep trying. My new maxim, picked up from Jeffrey Holland - no situation is so bad that whining won't make it worse. I think I'm going to post that in the kids' rooms (and mine).
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