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Of Children, Chores and Schedules by Susan Franklin |
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Even young children need to participate in family chores to develop a sense of belonging and a feeling of accomplishment. Homeschooling parents need schedules to keep the chores in their proper place so as to not take over the day and push aside time needed for direct instruction. If you fear a schedule, remember, it is a guide, but not a dictator.
My schedule helps to keep a balance in my life. If I don’t schedule time for a date with my husband and time for myself, motherhood can completely overtake my life to the detriment of all. As the saying goes, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” We have incorporated a schedule in our home to give each person’s needs and responsibilities their proper due and to keep our home running “decently and in order.” Incidentally, if you’re a fan of television, you’ll find that if you have some personal goals, want to have an orderly home and time with your loved ones, television just doesn’t fit into the picture once you try to work out a schedule. A cheerful attitude that trickles down from mom is necessary to maintain harmony while keeping household chaos at bay. Scheduling time during the early morning for exercise, prayer, Bible study and extra reading makes it it easier to keep that patient, sweet tone in my voice throughout the day. If mom and dad do household chores without complaining or nagging and bring children into the process as trainees, housework can become a natural activity and you can use it to teach toddlers and preschoolers basic skills such as counting, sorting, colors, shapes, sequencing, spatial relationships, etc. as you are training your child in the process of doing chores. You won't need to avoid messy craft projects that are so great for developing your children's creativity, motor skills and pre-writing skills. Since you just have that one messy area, clean-up shouldn't really take more than a few minutes when the rest of the home is basically neat and orderly and children are accustomed to helping with clean-up chores. Training for chores should be slow and steady. Begin as early as possible by doing the chore for a child first in his presence, then with your child. Work side by side at each task. Break the job down into multiple steps to establish a standard procedure, let the child work on one part of it, then another until he can do the task independently. The timer is your friend. You can set the timer during chore time to keep everyone working quickly so the jobs don’t stretch on endlessly, as they can. Or you can use the timer to motivate a dawdler and reward quick work with tickets for toys or art and craft supplies from mom’s store or computer or video time. Planning fun such as field trips, computer time, or videos into a schedule and making that element of the schedule conditional upon finishing chores, completing schoolwork, and maintaining good behavior is a method I have found to be workable, primarily because it teaches consequences for uncooperativeness. Extra chores can be added for complaining about the chores. Computer time at the end of the day is available to my son if all his toys and clothes are picked up from the house before dinner. This doesn’t always happen, but when it does I am glad to let him play one of his many games, most of which are educational anyway. We also have fun Fridays where I usually award coupons or certificates to both children for general good behavior or one particular good deed done during the week. Fridays are also for field trips, or a shopping trip for a special toy. This is a good carrot to hold out when the chores seem unbearable to a tired five-year old. Another motivator is, I must admit, the Clean-up Fairy. We don’t do Santa or the Easter Bunny but I found this fantasy character too practical an idea to pass up. I borrowed the idea from Pam Young and Peggy Jones’ book, Side-tracked Home Executives. Currently, our Clean-up Fairy is remarkably similar to the tooth fairy. She leaves gifts on the pillows of children occasionally when she happens to be in the neighborhood and finds a perfectly picked up room during the night. Of course, certain duties need to be expected as a responsibility related to the privelege of being part of a family, but greasing the wheels a little with positive rewards for general cooperation or specific tasks, even paid jobs, can keep peace and harmony in the home and prevent discouragement, even burn-out, for both parents and children. Taking the time to work out a schedule that includes daily time for household chores, along with other responsibilities, will force you to examine your life, establish clear priorities, improve your quality of life and give you a tool to help “redeem the time.” Not only that, but our schedule also gives me the ability to keep going in pursuit of our goals when the going gets tough. On the few days when I have to tell myself "breathe in, breathe out" the next words to myself can be, "What's next on the schedule?" Listed below are some additional resources related to chores, children and schedules http://www.sunsales.com Sunsales is a retailer of chore charts and other related products. We use Daily Duties wall charts and find their attractiveness makes the chores seem more attractive, too. http://www.homeschoolforms.jesusanswers.... http://www.tipztime.com/chorecharts/free... From homeschooling.about.com, “Setting Up a Schedule.” http://homeschooling.about.com/education... http://www.titus2.com http://www.homeschoolhome.com/TEACHER%20... http://www.worksheetsunlimited.com http://www.night.net/kids/certificates.h... http://www.fisherprice.com/us/rescuehero... |
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Susan Franklin lives in Indiana with her husband, son and daughter and stays busy teaching her young children at home and chauffering them to a host of outside activities. | ||
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