The Art and Science of Managing the Large Family |
Large Family Logistics |
Teamwork |
Many moms of today grew up with busy childhoods of simply busywork. We got up, rode the bus, went to school, rode the bus, did homework, ate supper, watched TV, went to bed, and did the same routine every day for years and years. Some of us were blessed enough to have chores before and/or after school and on Saturdays. Some of us had moms who did all the work while we were at school. As usually happens, we raise our children like we were raised. This housekeeping system might work, if were using the same small family system and school system, but throw several more children into the mix with homeschooling and the old system of mom doing all the house work will break the system or break the mom. Are you burned out with school or housework? Don�t throw in the towel. Read on� PlanningFirst of all you�re going to need to make a plan and to help you do that you need to identify what is working and what is not in your home. Make a list of the good things and at your Team Meeting praise your Team for these things. Then make a list of the things that need improvement and do some brainstorming about how the Team can improve on these points. Now, spend some time praying over these things and over the time that you will talk to your husband and your team. Your husband is part of the Team also, technically he is the Head Coach and it might help you to identify him as such when you are writing out your brainstorming ideas. Next, find a good time to talk to your husband, the Head Coach, about these things. Right when he comes home from work is not it. A date night might be good time, or after the children are in bed. Ask him what he would like to see improved around the home and if he has any ideas for how to improve them. Tell him that you would like to work on Teamwork within the family and assign the children to different positions around the home. Try really hard to not take the things he says personally and become offended and act defensive. Pray for grace. Remember, you are asking him for advice and bringing ideas to him and he might say things in a way that you don�t appreciate. Try to separate the message from any reactive emotions that you find bubbling up. Have a pencil and paper in hand and write down what he is saying. This conversation will help you to learn how to be a better helpmate to your husband. For example, it might be really important for him to sit down in his favorite chair and relax when he first comes home. He might tell you that he doesn�t like Legos spread all over the floor of that room, a stack of books on his chair and kids bickering over whose turn it is to set the glasses on the supper table. Squelch your excuses, and talk about what you as helpmeet can do to make his time at home more pleasant. Write, write, write what he tells you. The physical act of writing will help you keep a lid on your emotions. You might not like his ideas at first hearing, but do your best not to tell him �This and that won�t work because�� Think about things for awhile, take time to process it. Before you and your husband end the conversation, set at time to have a Team Meeting with the whole family.
The Team MeetingThis is the part where you get the children on your Team. Explain to them that the family must work together in order to live in peace and harmony in this home. Ask them: What are the things that we do around here so that we have food, clothing, a clean home, and a nice yard? It might help to have a white board, chalk board, or big sheet of paper to list these things really big. Think coach and team. Fill up the board with all the things that the children say. They might name silly small things but put these things down also. When they run out of ideas, steer them towards other things or areas of the house. Help them to �see� that the house takes a lot of work. Now, don�t forget that you�re also the teacher, have the children list the things that you as teacher do. Once you�ve exhausted this activity and before their attention span has withered away, you or preferably the Head Coach need to tell them that one person cannot do all these things and that the family needs to act more like a Team. Now, have ready a list of all the things that need done in each room of the house: Daily, Weekly, Monthly. Have each room�s list on its own paper in a sleeve protector or laminated. Show them to the Team so they understand that the work is made up it just needs delegated. You might want to save the Kitchen and Table Chores for another Team Meeting working things in gradually helps them to �stick� better. Ask each member of the Team what their favorite room is. Assign each member to be responsible for their favorite room. They will care more about keeping a room nice if it�s their favorite. If you have children fighting over a room, then draw straws and promise to trade in couple of months. Babies and toddlers of course cannot be counted on to do Room Chores of course, but they can learn by watching. Assign them to a buddy and the buddy should take them along with their work and they can do little things like pick up toys or trash. Preschoolers are unreliable and are better suited to be assigned a big kid also to be a mini-team. Unless, the preschoolers are the oldest children in the house, then it is best that you bring your preschoolers along with you with whatever you are doing. Show them what to do, and let them do the work with you. These children you are training so that they can train the next set of little children when they are the big ones. It will take you longer to do the work but it will pay big dividends down the road. When you go into each room, show the children the paper that has listed the things that need done. Now, assign each item to the smallest person capable of doing each item. Teach this method to your big children that are a mini-team with little children. At your Team Meeting, explain these things to the Team. It probably won�t all sink in until you are actually doing the work. The first few days and weeks will be challenging. As Coach, you need to keep the spirits up. Encourage the Team. Praise them. Don�t forget Feast Night. Praise and reward the children that are doing their best. Challenge the other children to work harder at helping out the Team. Don�t be Bobby Knight. You and the Head Coach are pictures of our Heavenly Father. Yes, he chastises us but He also loves us and is very patient with us. Keep this in mind when coaching your Team throughout the week.
One-on-One CoachingChildren love and crave attention. They want your love. And I know that you do love them. I am in no way suggesting that you use love to manipulate them to do what you want. That is sick and wrong. But working along side any child of any age, encouraging them and teaching them is a wonderful way to get to know a child better and it greatly encourages them to work harder and more diligently. They get a better picture of why they are doing what they are doing. Working along side a loved one is fun, enjoyable, encouraging, and doesn�t seem like work at all. When work is done alone it can be dull and drudgery. Of course a lot of times work does need to be done alone and this is when they need to be taught to enjoy work for work�s sake, to do it for the family, to do it heartily as unto the Lord, to sing or whistle while they work, to work quickly and efficiently in order to get it done. These things you can teach them when you are working side-by-side. Start this when the children are little and they will teach it to the next set of little children.
Just do itI know the phrase hardly means anything anymore. But really, that is what a lot of work boils down to. Just do it. This is another thing that we need to teach our children, gently of course. Try not to yell, �Just do it!� Teach them that it�s an attitude. It�s determination. Demonstrate it for them. No pity parties allowed. Set a good example.� When you sigh while washing dishes, they will learn to do it also. Sometimes it takes great effort, you have to force yourself to defrost the deep freeze or gather the supplies to paint. Then once you�re actually doing it, it flows and goes forward and soon your done and you realize that getting up the momentum to do it was far greater than the effort to do the task. Make the �Just do it� phrase and attitude stick in your brain. Teach your children that it must just stick in the brain. Say it, sing it, whisper it, yell it with gusto (not anger), but do not sigh or whine it.
Pre-seasonWhen you start out building your team, they might be severely out of shape or just mildly. The first few workouts might hurt. As coach, you need to build up their attitudes and encourage them. Show them the progress and teach them to admire their work. Help them to build satisfaction in doing work. As each week passes, point out to them the progress. Build incentives into the work. Dad gets paid for work. He supports the family with the money he earns so in essence Mom gets paid. Teach the children that the Bible says, �If you don�t work, you don�t eat.� That�s found in 2 Thessalonians 3:10. Teach the children that as a productive member of this Team/family they must pitch in and help share the workload. It is their duty. It is also your duty as mom to teach them this principle. To do any less is to set them up for failure as a provider to their own family. So in these first weeks of Team building it will be hard work for everyone until they get the drills down and build strength. �You can do it!� is a great encouraging word that you can say to your children and teach them to say it to each other and to you.
The HuddleEvery day, gather the Team together before chore time and pass around some encouragement. Give some quick praises for shown improvement and some quick words of instruction for improvements that need to happen. Then �GO TEAM!� and quick get the work done.
Time OutThere are days when things don�t go well. Sickness, weather, a late night, busy-ness, etc. these things can bring a Team down. At times like these, it�s good to take a break. Gather them together, give some words of encouragement, get a drink or a snack, read a story, and then go back again and get the work finished up. Some days we lose the game. That�s OK as long as we can replay the situation and figure out what went wrong and then move forward with improvements in mind. TeamworkSometimes one person�s area needs cleaned really fast, such as when you see unexpected company driving down the lane. Then everybody needs to pitch in together to do a quick tidy of the public area of the house, starting with the view from the front door. This is something to practice for so when it happens in reality everybody know what to do and how to do it fast. Whining, �But it�s not my job� is unacceptable at anytime because everybody should help each other but when doing a Quick Tidy it�s especially unacceptable. You don�t have time when company is walking up to the house to go discipline the whiner so prepare ahead of time with practice runs so that there is no whiner. A really helpful saying we have around our house is �We are a family, we love each other, we take care of each other, and we help each other.�
The Finish LineIs there a finish on this earth? At some point these little players will grow into big players and move on to other games and sports. They won�t be in our homes forever. We need to prepare these players for that game, it our duty as Coach. Yes, we need the physical help because we can�t do it all alone. But there is a far bigger picture; we are their God-given Coach training up Godly seed. Our children need to learn what work is and how to go about it in a Godly manner. Once we have done our Coaching duty and our children are glorifying God with their lives and their work, then is our game is nearing completion? I don�t think so, I myself learned a lot about work from my grandmother. I think we�ll just keep on getting to be better Coaches and have lots more children (grandchildren) to coach.
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Get the home team working for your home! |
Date: 12/05 |
Try out these helpful tools in your home. Large and small feather dusters, Go to the Ant CD, Child Sized Tools, And Tidy Up�a safe� all-purpose cleaner
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