Part 7: Organizing your kids' chores
Organizing your child's chores
Your goal in shepherding your child is to teach them what they need to know to be successful both spiritually and practically on their own when they grow up. Part of that is teaching them how to do chores around the house. You have to be purposeful and plan for this to happen. It is far easier to just do the chores yourself. But your children need to learn. And eventually they will actually be helpful. In giving them chores to do, the goal is to not only teach them skills, but more importantly teach them to work cheerfully, focused, and do their tasks for the Lord.
First, you need to decide what chores your child is capable of doing. If you have trouble knowing what is age appropriate, try asking other moms with older kids. Also, I know that if you Google “age appropriate chores”, you will find a lot of resources. As soon as the kids start walking, they can help put their toys away in a basket, with your help. You have them work for an age appropriate amount of time. And then, as they mature, they can do more and more. When my kids were little, we had clean up time before meals, naps and bedtime. As the kids get a little older, they should be able to try to do many chores on their own. Then you put on the "finishing touches" (which will be redoing it and giving them instruction on what to do different next time to be better.) They should be responsible for certain chores on a regular basis. Every day they should at least clean up their rooms, set the table, put their trash in the trash, water plants, put their dirty clothes in the hamper, sweep up their mess on the floor at the dinner table, make their beds, help unload the dishwasher, etc. Then they should have other chores they have to do occasionally, such as dust their rooms, sweep the back porch, wash the car, vacuum, sort dirty laundry, help with gardening and deep cleaning, put away clean laundry, etc. You can have them do things with you, such as give them a shovel to play with when you are gardening, have them dump and smell things you are cooking, or throw clean laundry on top of your kids in a laundry basket as you sort the clean laundry. My kids used to get a big laugh out of that one. That way they are sort of helping by not hindering you, and they are learning from you. They need to learn from you that work is an important part of life and that you should be cheerful doing it.
Make sure that learning to cook is on the list of chores that you teach your kids. At some point, they should be responsible to cook a whole meal on their own. Be patient and realize dinner might be late that night! The first time I cooked a dinner all by myself, I made invitations to give to my mom, dad, brother, and my grandparents who lived next door. I was only making tacos, but my grandfather showed up in a tuxedo for the special occasion. I will always remember that!
Organizing skills are necessary to teach them as they grow older. They should learn how to organize their rooms. When my kids were young, I would go through their rooms when they weren't there and throw out a lot of stuff. As they got older, I couldn’t do that. First, they would notice what was missing. Secondly, they needed to learn to organize also. I would pick a small area, such as a desk drawer for them to work on. They would have to empty the whole thing out, and make 2 piles-throw away and keep. Then they have to decide if some stuff in the "to keep" pile should be somewhere else that makes more sense. Then they figure out how to neatly arrange the remaining things to go back in the drawer, so that the drawer will be useful. Refer to my prior organizing blogs for basic organizing principles you use in teaching organization to your kids as well as to yourself.
In the last blog, I talked about keeping a daily list of things your kids need to do. You need to write specific chores you want them to do on it. If I didn’t write it down, when my kids had free time, I would be thinking: "I know there was something I needed them to be doing, but I can't remember what it is." And then I would remember after they went to bed. Oops. Write it down!
If you don't train them when they are little to help out around the house, they will think you are their servant. You need to train them to be one who loves to serve and help others, and give them the skills they need to do it. They also need to learn how to manage a household in order to be a functioning, independent adult.
May the Lord enable us to be more the mothers He wants us to be, to His glory. I Corinthians 15:58. "Therefore my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord."
For questions or comments, you can contact me at candice@anastasihome.com