Family Home Evening

So we've had lots of struggles with the kids lately about helping out around the house and doing chores and stuff. Tonight for FHE we'll talk abou them and why we have chores and responsibilities and lay down a new plan to help motivate everyone.

I’ve been looking at websites and reading up on different things and ideas that people have about chores and what kids can be expected to do. I think we need to actually look at it as three different levels of “work/chores” so to speak.

1- Individual responsibility- individual chores the kids are expected to do and receive some form of positive encouragement for their individual accomplishment
2- Child led group responsibility- Something the kids are asked to do together and work and accomplish together for a group reward.
3- Family responsibility- larger things that the kids can’t do on their own, more items that we need to accomplish, but by involving the kids in it they learn the reward of working together and accomplishing a job and they learn the skills to do it on their own in the future.


1-For individual responsibility- I’m making new chore charts, I’ve been reading about age appropriate chores for kids, and I know since the kids aren’t doing much now we need to work up and start the better habits and practices for them- so I was trying to figure out some chores that I think it would be reasonable for us to ask them to do.

I think we will have a “family council” of sorts and let them have input on what chores they should be doing.

I was thinking with Alex and Ashley they can have the responsibility of making their bed, putting dirty clothes in the hamper, and putting away their clean clothes. I also thought that they could each have one or two nights where they help clean up from dinner.

With Alyssa I thought we could have her make her bed and put her dirty clothes in the hamper, and I think during the day I would have her help unload the dishwasher. I can start doing that earlier in the day and then it’s all ready to be loaded in the evening.


2-For the child led group responsibility- I was thinking is that the kids need to have an incentive for cleaning up- or it just becomes me yelling and randomly taking away privileges from them and we all get frustrated. They love to play games so much, and I thought if I give them the incentive to clean up before dinner each night- then perhaps we can play a family game each night after dinner/before bed, or read a book together or something? My other thought was that dessert would be dependent on finishing the chores for the day, but that is more of an individual thing and doesn’t encourage them to just work together to clean up the living room- the goal of playing a family game might. Also I don’t know that we need to tie dessert as a reward for doing chores.

3-For the family one was that once a month we could have a “family cleaning” where we choose something that needs to be cleaned up as a family and work on it together- that could be cleaning the garage together, weeding the flower bed, catching up on house cleaning- doing the windows or baseboards or blinds that I never can seem to get to on my own.



Rich asked me where I found the above stuff and I had to tell him that it’s kind of bits and pieces from different places. I was initially looking up age appropriate chores- and came across different chore charts that listed what age appropriate chores different sites recommended. I looked at them and decided ones that I thought would work for our kids. There were actually more chores on the charts for Alex and Ashley, but I thought I needed to work with some simple things first and then add to their charts after the basic habits were started. Most of the sites advocate some form of allowance tied to chores, and I can see the benefit of that, but didn’t want to have all of the responsibilities tied to an allowance (whether monetary or paid in tv/x-box/computer time allowances). So while I was reading through that stuff I knew that I still needed to find some way to get the kids to cooperate and help clean up more general things and make it be a group goal instead of just an individual goal of accomplishing their chore to get their allowance.

Then I started thinking about how to put “clean your rooms” on the charts. For Alex it’s pretty simple and straightforward- the mess in his room is from him, but with Ashley it isn’t as simple. The mess isn’t always from her and it really isn’t fair to expect her to clean up her room all the time on her own when 70% of the mess is from Alyssa and Angela. So I got to thinking about the times when the kids really do clean up well and work together. Usually it’s before we do something and they are motivated to clean up so we can go somewhere or something. Right when I’m making dinner and before you get home really seems to me to be the time for me to motivate them to clean up, and then after dinner the cleaning will be done and we can play games and stuff- the thing is you and I have to be in agreement and willing to sit and play the games or read the book - whatever motivating factor we decide to give them before it is too late and time to get ready for bed.

I was also searching through the LDS site for some articles or something to help me base my lesson on, and I ran across tons of articles on working together as a family on chores and goals and the closeness that that creates which helps as the kids get older and stuff and thought that that is another thing we need to start trying to do more.

So I was trying to figure out which “philosophy” so to speak to try and focus on tonight, and then I thought- well why do I have to choose just one? Why can’t we just separate it into individual, group and family responsibilities and talk about how we have to learn and do things individually sometimes, and as a group other times and with the family- it can be a lot of fun to work together and accomplish a job.

So... hopefully I'll be able to convey to the kids tonight what I've been able to type up. Because on paper it looks good, but I know getting things from paper- to mesh and make sense in kids brains- isn't always easy. ;)

The good days

I think after having had bad days, I appreciate the good days so much more. Yesterday Rich stayed home and wasn't feeling very well. Since he was "hogging" the computer I didn't get on here much and since he was around to help amuse the little kids, I got a lot of housework done. It is such a feeling of accomplishment to be able to clean a bathroom (really clean it... I used a toothbrush in the showerstall!!) without any kids yelling or screaming or trashing another room while you were cleaning the bathroom. :)

I've found that the sense of accomplishment that I felt yesterday has carried over to today. I didn't get as much done sine Rich was back at work, but I'm feeling better about what I did do, and focusing on that instead of the things that I didn't get accomplished. My kitchen floor didn't get mopped, but I did vacuum the living room. All the clothes aren't folded and put away, but since I caught up yesterday and actually put clothes away- the three loads that I washed today aren't too big of a pile and they don't seem overwhelming when I think about taking a 1/2 hour this evening to fold and put them away.

Tomorrow may be a bad day again, but I'm going to enjoy my good day today and make a yummy dinner that Rich and I like... the kids will complain- I'm sure (lately they always do) that they don't want to eat what I make, but I'm having a good day and tough cookies to them- but their complaining isn't going to bother me today. They actually like the meal and can eat it even if they would rather have something else today. lol!

Baking

So what does it say about me, that I've been trying to not make a bunch of sweets all the time- and I've been struggling with feeling down a bit.

Last night I made an apple crisp. I had so much fun making it and I felt great!

So... I guess I just need to bake more to keep my mental health charged up... I just need to not eat it after I bake it. lol!

Winter blues

I've opened up this blog multiple times in the last week and looked at it, and closed it again without putting anything on it.

I think I'm going through a bit of depression. I hesitate to use the word, because I know there are so many people who really suffer from it and my classification of it is very mild. I will have multiple days at a time where I feel absolutely fine, and then a few days in a row where I feel borderline and like I cannot take another minute of whinning and crying from anyone. I'm sure it has a lot to do with my sleep, or lack thereof. Angela has been up with fevers for four nights in a row and then the last two nights she's been up with gas cramps that have her screaming in pain. It is like an out of body experience when I know I've reached the limit to my own ability to take care of things and I need to step aside and hand the baby over to Rich. Last night was one of those nights and now I'm in the contemplative mode of trying to analyze why I'm reacting to things the way I am reacting to things.

I call it my psychoanalisys mode where I have a conversation in my head of what I think others would tell me, how I would respond and justify my actions, or apologize etc. I give myself pep talks and tell myself that I need to just buck up and get moving and I'll feel better- and I do, and I do feel better when I do that. It is just a cycle that I seem to get caught in during the winter months when it's cold and kids seem to pass colds from school and church to each other and I wind up at home with sick kids longer than I'd like.

So I'm in my pj's and it's almost lunch time. The little kids are fed, but not dressed for the day and the house needs to be cleaned. It's not filthy, but it really needs some good cleaning done to it. I know that when the house is messy and I'm tired and I look around and see the mess, I get overwhelmed and that intensifies my lack of motivation to get up and clean it up and take care of things. I'm hoping I can jump start my mood with some good energetic cleaning this afternoon.

Well after my last entry I just about had a breakdown on Thursday when we had some trouble with the hot water heater- I was using the hot water to melt the ice on the driveway and the release valve broke so I couldn't close it and stop the water from running out the hose that was connected to it. I had to shut off the water filling the hot water heater and wait till that evening for Rich to replace the valve. I finally made it out of the house Friday evening got some "mommy alone time" that I was very badly needing after the previous two weeks.

The weekend was a very welcome relief to get things back to normal. We were able to get out of the house as a family, spend some time together and go out to dinner on Saturday and then go to church on Sunday.

Monday the schedule was back to normal and the older kids got to go to school, Rich was at work and I got to go exercise at the Y and just have a quiet day with two kids for a few hours instead of four. :)