September 2, 2009

Managing Chores

Everyone loves this topic! Well, maybe that's not accurate, but they are a necessary part of day to day living. Our home is no exception...there are chores to be done every day.

One of the things that frustrated me when my children were attending school outside the home was that I felt like everyone's servant, or maybe I should say, slave. Don't get me wrong, serving is a good and godly characteristic...but the children were expecting to be served rather than to serve. How could we teach them this valuable lesson in the "off" times when they had so many other pressing things requiring their attention? When home school began at our house, so did the chores...in earnest!

A godly Christian friend of mine has ten children and an orderly, clean, well-functioning home. Not wanting to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, I asked her advice. Chores are done by all the children on a regular basis in their family. How does that play out? Is there a master list? Do they rotate? Who teaches them the tasks?

The children are trained in a particular chore, or chores depending on their level of ability. Then they are always responsible for that chore. When it is "chore time" there are no guesses as to what is expected, and Mum knows who is responsible if it's not done right. No rotation happens. After a year or two the child is proficient enough to teach the next child the chore and "pass the torch" and moves onto another task which they will do for the next year or two. What a great idea! It works well in our home...maybe you will implement this too. Let me know what you think!

BTW...what used to take Mum (that's me) about two hours to accomplish can all be completed in about 30 minutes, which leaves Mum free for other things...like school. :)

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