kristaphillips You all had some fabulous laundry suggestions last week! Thank you!!!
For the record, we absolutely do some delegating around this house. However, we need to improve this process 100 fold.
I don’t currently delegate laundry, other than asking them to help “switch” it (washer to dryer, dryer to basket) and putting their own clothes away. And with 4 kiddos, I haven’t completely figured out how “doing your own laundry” would work, because with shared rooms and hampers, and loads that need to be combined, it sounds very UNsimple to me.
But… I’m in the process of rearranging chores around our house. And helping with laundry will most certainly be one of them.
Right now, the only “regular” chores the kiddos have are “after dinner” chores.
One cleans off the table/Annabelle’s high chair.
One empties the dishwasher and puts the dirty dishes in.
One cleans counters and sweeps the floor.
This works pretty well for us, except when days are skipped because of busy evenings, which with softball right now, is more often that I’d like.
But my sweet, wonderful children have taken this assignment of chores to mean that they are not responsible for anything else around the house, including things like, oh…. cleaning their room… picking up after themselves… not leaving their bathroom trashed… not putting clean clothes in the dirty laundry after they try them on and decide not to wear them which ends up being a LOT because, well, I have 4 girls… and girls like to try on clothes!… little things like that:-)
So….. We are in the process of implementing other chores/rules to help reign in the chaos that is our house.
Because the thing is…. I don’t have time to clean/pick up the house on a daily basis when I’m “supposed” to be cleaning up the mess of 4 children and 2 adults. Between appointments, therapies, book writing, meds, and feeds… yeah, it just isn’t there. I try… I really do. Some weeks are better than others.
Our new process (in development stages) will put the “picking up” on the people who MAKE the messes.
Mommy, in turn, will happily do the “deep” cleaning, such as vacuuming and moping and the like. (although they will be scrubbing their own bathroom… but I digress.)
I’ve jumbled around in my mind if we should tie this to allowances (which we currently don’t do) but to be honest, I think cleaning up after themselves should be a given.
Now, if they want to take one of Mommy’s chores… I’ll be glad to give them a little something for their effort, ha!
Discussion: How do chores work in your house??? I welcome feedback/ideas from others as we revamp our chore policy around here!
*side notes*
We’ve had a yucky influx of sickies around our house. Lacy ran a fever most of the weekend, including a 104.7 temp on Friday night. I think she’s on the mend, but we all have a bit of snot or cough and it’s just ugh. Annabelle has it too, and while her O2 levels have been stable, they are visibly lower than she had been running (low 90’s vs high 90’s.) As long as it doesn’t get any worse, I think we’re fine. But just pray that we can “kick” this junk and get better!!!
Also, Scott and I are in prayer about a potential big decision we need to make soon. We’d appreciate your prayers for this pretty big (yet unspoken) prayer request.
OH! And to top off everything else… currently our air conditioner isn’t working. (it runs, just not really cold, so we’ve kept it off because blowing lukewarm air helps nothing except to boost our electric bill…) We’re hoping to get someone to look at it this week… but it is old (original to our 1993 built house…), and I’m praying they can “service” it to get us through another year without replacing it. Yet… we’ve prayed this every year since pretty much when we bought the house in 2007. Replacing it would be devastating to our finances, to say the least. But going without air all summer is NOT NOT NOT an option either. Anyway, your prayers are appreciated to that end as well!
Krista – so interesting to read how others do it! I did read your post last week but didn't comment.
Re laundry:
I can get laundry done but getting it put up is the bane of my existence. My oldest two have started doing some of their own but not a ton [they're 10 and 8]. My 4yo is actually my best helper there ;).
I protested for a long time but a few years ago, I got them all their own mesh hampers. Their clothes go in and I do one load per kiddo. Everything in the same washer with color safe bleach [except my oldest who has very sensitive skin]. I also got those lingerie bags and they put their socks and undies in the bag.
Theoretically.
My 4yo is, again, best at doing that. The girls? Not so much. But the day after I did her laundry, my 10yo still had no socks so maybe it's gonna sink in.
They do help with changing it etc. but the way the shelves etc are it's not reasonable right now for them to do the soap etc. in our front loader.
And we're working on the picking up after ourselves thing too. /sigh/ Always complaining "I didn't do it". Yeah. Well I didn't either and I clean up after you guys all the time so quit yer whinin' ;).
Praying for the fam to feel better! Hate the yuckiness!
Hey Krista…we recently "revamped" the chores in our house too…and by revamped, I mean I wrote them down and posted them. My girls have always had these chores but it is easy to forget with all the beautiful weather and time spent outside lately. So I wrote down daily and weekly chores and assigned each to a child…Daily chores consist of loading/unloading the dishwasher, picking up their bathrooms, picking up the bonus room, picking up their bedrooms and feeding/watering the animals.
Weekly chores consist of cleaning the bathrooms, bedrooms, vacuuming the upstairs (all bedrooms and bonus room), dusting (one child dusts the bonus and guest room, the other two dust their bedrooms) plus whatever their daily chores are for the day….They are also all responsible for bringing their laundry downstairs for me to sort and putting away their clean laundry.
Its amazing what a help it has been to me! When they ask me, "Can we go outside to play?" All I have to do is ask if they have done their chores for the day yet….to go check their list. The do the chore(s) then are out the door to play with their friends until dinner time. So my recommendation is a posted chore list with each chore assigned to so their is no arguing over "its your turn" or "I did that last."
My three boys are 16, 17 and 17
Everyday chores in the morning before school
16 – unload dishwasher
17 – vacuum living room and straighten up living room
17 – walk dogs, take out trash, and wash tables
Every Friday their rooms have to be clean before their weekend can begin.
They each have their own laundry basket, if they want me to wash their clothes they must put laundry in the washroom. If not they can do their own.
Get rid of anything that you do not use. Clean your house of clutter. Turn your hangers backwards in your closet, as you wear the item turn it the right way. If you have not worn in a year, get rid of it. I am a little OCD, but have gotten better. We still have color coded towels and wash cloths for each person in our home.
My children are now 19 and 21, but when they were younger, my son was supposed to be our dinner table clean-up guy (clear the table, put away leftovers, etc.) and my daughter was supposed to be the dishes person (rinse dishes, fill dishwasher, etc.). It went ok, but my daughter hated her job. She begged me to let her do the laundry instead. She was about 13 at this time and in no time at all, she was doing the entire family's laundry — washing, drying, folding/hanging up and delivering to bedrooms. She actually enjoyed doing it and did it until she left home. I have had to reluctantly relearn how to do laundry since she left…. 😉 At this point, it is just my 19-year-old son and I at home, since my husband died last summer. There isn't nearly as much work to do, but my son does his own laundry, takes out the trash, mows the grass (at least part of the time), cooks ocassionally, and helps clear the table. So it really did help him to learn all that as a little kid…. Hang in there. I know it is as hard to get a kid to do it as it is to do it yourself, but in the long run it is totally worth the effort to teach them and insist they do it.
Linda
As what I would call "personal chores," I usually have my kids clean their own rooms and pick up their own things from around the house. Since my oldest is 6, if one of my kids takes initiative to do some cleaning on their own, I try to reward them for it. For example, Abbie picked up the kids' play room all by herself without anyone asking her to do it. (I think she was bored.) She didn't do a perfect job but I took her to the dollar store and let her pick out one thing for herself as an encouragement to continue doing what is right.
If my son needs to clean his room, however, I let him know that all activity (video games, tv, etc.) is off limits until he has done it. those kinds of chores are not rewarded because he needs to learn to take responsibility for his own things. They are little steps in the right direction I think. As they get older things will change a bit.
Allowances for chores are hard. On the one hand, I agree with you that helping keep the household running should be a "given". Buuuuttt, an allowance also helps teach money management (in a time when so many are struggling as adults with budgeting, etc). It also gives you the opportunity to teach things like tithing… So, what to do? Maybe keep their after dinner chores as standard but add a few extra for allowance? (Maybe the bathroom that you mentioned? Or some bigger things that don't need to be done every day like helping wash the car???) Dunno. My kiddos aren't quite old enough for such things yet, so it's nice for me to see how others are doing it.