Avivah Werner

Category: Parenting

  • Keeping an eye on littles

    >>How do you always keep an eye on the younger ones and still do things (cook, prepare for shabbos, etc…)? Can you see their play area from the kitchen or do you have them play by you?<<

    >>How does one take care of the littles and still get everything done when there are no older children around to entertain/watch them?<<

    When we were looking at homes to buy several years ago, I consciously looked for a certain kind of layout that would work well with my parenting style.  I have an open floor plan on the main floor, which consists of the living room, dining room, and kitchen.  I can pretty much keep an eye on what’s going on from wherever I’m at. That helps alot.

    Of course at this stage, having older kids is also helpful!  But since I had six kids in nine years, I didn’t have older kids to help out with this for a long time!  And it’s not like my older kids have become primary caregivers for their siblings, so I still use the same three basic strategies:

    1) Have the kids work with you – this means taking extra time to involve them, but kids enjoy the time and feeling of accomplishment.  My littles run to the rag drawer to get their own rags when they see me start to clean walls or cabinet fronts.  🙂  Let them help to the degree that they are interested and willing, as much as you are emotionally comfortable with it.

    2) Do the bulk of your work when they’re asleep.  I can get a lot more done in an hour or two when the house is quiet than I can with them awake and messing up things five minutes after I clean them up!  For major work, this is my preference.  I can easily feel like I’m not getting anything done if I spend most of my time cleaning up after them when they’re awake, and feel my time is better spent interacting with them (which happens to limit messes in their scope!).

    3) Do some things when they’re happily occupied and in view, so you can make sure they stay happily occupied.  🙂

    Often some work can be shifted from the room it usually takes place in to the room where your kids are. Eg – laundry can be sorted and folded in the living room, vegetables can be peeled at the dining room table – if you’re willing to be flexible, there are ways to bring the kids into your work area or move yourself into their play area.

    Avivah

  • Regaining perspective

    This morning I took ds2 and ds3 to a local story hour, and afterward they made a craft and did some painting.  It’s the first time I’ve done this with them, and though we do things like this every day at home (except for painting – that rarely  happens), I wanted to take them out so it was a special outing with them.  It was very nice for us all.  When I came home with them, a puzzle was in the early stages on the dining room table, so while I waited for lunch to heat up, I started putting it together.

    Though I rarely do puzzles, I enjoy them – I find it relaxing and satisfying to watch one come together, and after interacting so intensively with the littles for quite a while, was enjoying doing something quiet and purposeful.  After about ten minutes, dd9 came by, saw me working on it and asked if she could join me.  I told her ‘sure’, so she started working with me.  But as her arm was repeatedly moving in front of my face and making it hard for me to see, I started to feel like she was getting in the way of me getting the puzzle done.

    After this happened about fifteen times in two or three minutes, I felt annoyed and was about to tell her that I couldn’t get anything put together like that.  I started to say “It’s so-” and abruptly stopped as I remembered that it really didn’t matter how fast the puzzle got done, or even if it was finished at all.  What mattered was taking the opportunity to do something fun with dd.  As she continued busily trying out puzzle pieces in various spaces, she asked me, “‘It’s so’ what?”  And instead of telling her ‘it’s so challenging to get the puzzle done with your arm blocking me every ten seconds’, I told her, “It’s so nice that you’re doing this puzzle with me.”  And I meant it.

    So often we get busy and lose sight of the forest for the trees.  We have things to do, and more things to do after that, and sometimes we rush right through everything.  Isn’t it obvious that the puzzle didn’t matter?  But it just goes to show how we can easily lose perspective, even with things that are unimportant and are supposed to be fun!!

    Avivah

  • Advising teen children towards long term choices

    Recently I’ve begun researching various colleges for my dd15, and yesterday after taking ds16 to have his wisdom teeth out, I stopped at the community college office to ask some questions.  I’ll have to go back with my kids and get an appointment with an advisor for each of them.

    Right now I’m feeling conflicted about some issues on the horizon regarding my kids and college.  Dd15 is strongly leaning towards a profession that would be a very good fit for her and I’m very supportive of it.  It also is academically vigorous and will require 7 – 8 years of college.  There are only about 16 colleges that teach this field in the US – and none of them are anywhere close to the state we live in, which necessitates living away from home and raises the bill by about another $10,000 yearly.  Each year of schooling costs about $25 – 30,000 before living expenses, and there is very little financial aid available except for student loans.  Dd can get started within a year and could theoretically be finished as early as when she’s 22.  In the broad scheme of things, that’s pretty young, and she would have a career that could be balanced with raising a family and do something she enjoys and finds satisfying.

    I have several views about life/family that aren’t easily reconciled when looking at this particular career path (similar though different issues with ds16), and I’m grappling with how to best guide my children.   I’m not telling them what to do or how to do it- that isn’t my role – but not to give them some direction when they’re requesting support would be wrong.  I’ve raised my children with the perspectives below, so these are currently views they share (which obviously might change with time).  1) If a couple is old enough to get married, they’re old enough to support themselves.  2) When someone is emotionally mature and ready for marriage  and finds the right person, that’s the time to get married – regardless if numerically that seems young or old to others.  3) Children are a blessing and a newly married couple shouldn’t  purposely put them on hold to complete academic requirements.  4) The responsibility for supporting the family is on the husband, not the wife.  5) Debt can become a huge albatross around the neck that can force people to make choices they don’t want to make.

    Add in to this mix the desire of dd15 to spend a year in Israel, the desire of ds16 to spend several years in yeshiva once he’s 18 (ie, both potentially ‘time outs’ on the career path), and the reality that larger families generally require more financial resources.  So guiding them means considering a number of factors with both the long term and short term in mind.

    I was telling all this to a good friend last night, and she told me I’m once again going to have to blaze my own trail.  And I told her, I’m tired of blazing my own trail for every single thing – I want to find someone who has similar values who has successfully navigated this, and just do whatever they did.  I don’t want to have to think, research, and reflect so much.  😆 But as I know very well, a meaningful life of joy doesn’t come from following the crowd unless that’s where my heart is.

    So here’s where I’m at with all of this: sometimes I get too uptight and have to step back to regain perspective!  I have to remind myself that H-shem created a world where doing His will is the goal, and whatever we’re doing, it’s with the desire to serve Him and to be responsible stewards in this world of the resources we’re entrusted with.  I have to let go of trying to figure all of this out in advance, and do the best I can one day at a time, and trust that the partner that I’ve had raising my children all these years – H-shem – will continue to support us all and help us make the right choices.

    Practically speaking I don’t know what that will look like, but I’ll share it with you when we figure it out!

    Avivah

  • Making time for yourself

    Today I set out to do my monthly shopping, which I always enjoy.  But it was a long day and when I got home there was the van to unpack, then a living room filled with boxes of groceries to put away – and the baby was crying while ds2 and ds3 discovered things I bought that they wanted to eat right that minute, pulling them out and asking to eat them (or just opening it and throwing the wrapper/peel on the floor). And it was time for dinner and my mother had gotten there earlier (I forgot to tell her I’d be home late) and wanted to give the kids their presents right then (she had somewhere she needed to be at a certain time so she couldn’t really wait).

    The way I do present giving is that each person gets a gift, opens it, and thanks the giver before the next person receives anything.  It makes the entire thing an experience of togetherness instead of each person focusing on what he’s getting/giving.  That wasn’t what was happening!  Instead I had a chaotic, noisy house, was tired, hungry (it was 7 pm and hadn’t eaten since breakfast), tense, and felt like I’d scream if one more person touched me or even came near me. :))   Fortunately, I’ve learned when I feel like this that as long as I remember to take a deep breath and be careful about how I speak and interact with those around me, then it passes.

    So I nursed the baby, my mom gave presents and left, we had dinner, we put away a bunch of groceries, the kids went to bed, I cleaned up the kitchen – and with each step, it got easier to unknot the tension I was feeling.  Now I’ve had a hot cup of tea and am enjoying a quiet house, and since what I was really feeling earlier was the need for was some self-time, it seemed like an appropriate time to respond to the question below!

    >>Avivah, could you share how you manage to take downtime/selftime/recharging time for yourself?<<

    This is such an important question!  Mothers do so much all day long for everyone, and it’s too easy to forget to take time for ourselves.  When we keep giving and giving without taking time to recharge ourselves, we end up resentful, hostile, and burnt out.  Oh, and guilty – guilty for feeling resentful and hostile, guilty for having needs, angry for feeling guilty for having needs….

    My reality was living far from family, with no extra money for cleaning/babysitting help, a husband who wasn’t home very often – and having six children under the age of 9 home all day long, every single day.  So if I wanted to have a break, it was up to me to create the space for it to happen. This is crucial – you have to value yourself enough to make the time.  That might mean going to sleep early so you can get up when the house is still quiet, or staying up  late after the house has settled for the night (that’s what I do).  When you have that quiet time, you can use it for whatever you find relaxing and rejuvenating – talking to a friend, a good book and a cup of herbal tea, a relaxing bath, crafting, computer time, etc.

    I used to love to go walking with a friend.  This has been different times of the day, depending on my life circumstances.  I started when I had two young children at home and one or two out for a few hours a morning, and I would take a double stroller with the two kids loaded up and go for a walk (and this was before the days of jogging strollers!) mid morning.  I sometimes went walking late at night after the kids were in bed (when I lived in a neighborhood that was safe enough to feel comfortable with that).  This depended on my buddy in large part – I found that my walking partners all ended up becoming friends, because you end up talking quite a bit to each other.  Then I moved to a new neighborhood and didn’t have anyone to walk with, but I started swimming a few times a week (I became friendly with someone on a women’s syncronized swimming team and they let me do laps while they practiced for their state and national competition – they offered this to me since they knew that I needed a womens only swim environment – I left the house at about 5 or 5:30 am and drove 20 miles in each direction to get there!)  This was when I was homeschooling and had five kids.   Later when I was in yet a different city and homeschooling six kids, I again found a walking buddy and at 5 am would head out before the kids were awake and before my husband left for the day.  At one point, I went to a woman’s gym to exercise almost daily, though I didn’t enjoy this nearly as much as a walk outside!  Unfortunately I haven’t been walking for a long time; I don’t have a partner and my efforts to consistently walk by myself didn’t pan out.

    When my kids were all younger, it wasn’t enough to get up early or wait until 9 or 10 pm to have some quiet time.  My kids are fantastic, I love being with them – but there are a lot of demands on a mother and it can be very draining to go and go and go all day long.  I recognized that I needed to create a mini break in the middle of the day for myself.  I did that by putting my toddlers in for a nap once the baby was down for a nap.  Then, I’d tell the older three kids (this was when I had only six kids, so the older kids were about 6,8,9 when I started this) they needed to have quiet time in their rooms for an hour.  They didn’t have to nap, but they had to stay in their beds and they had to be quiet.  They could take a book or game with them, but they could not get out of bed and they couldn’t talk.  That was a huge help since I had an hour mid day to  physically and psychologically recharge myself, and enabled me to thrive through years with no outside help at all in any area, while continuing to enjoy my family.

    Nowadays I have other ways to meet my needs.  Some people have asked me how I find time to write on my blog. The answer is that writing here is something I do because I enjoy it.  Once in a while I start to feel like I have to do it, and that’s usually when you might notice a two day hiatus while I recenter myself.  Recharging yourself shouldn’t be something that feels like a chore, or something else on your ‘to do’ list!

    Another thing is to give yourself a break emotionally.  Tonight, why was I getting so uptight?  Where was all the pressure coming from?  From everyone else?  Not really.  Mostly it was inside my head.  It was what I was telling myself that was the true problem – usually I can have that exact same situation going on and I can stay cheerful and relaxed.   We have to learn to let go and relax our standards sometimes.  There are things you can do at some periods of your life that will leave you chronically run down and overextended at other stages.  And we have to learn to accept ourselves as we are, not only when we’re at our best, but when we’re at out worst.

    Avivah

  • Kids using the internet

    >>Do you allow your kids to research topics of interest on the internet?<<

    This isn’t a black and white answer.  In general I’m not a fan of the computer or internet for kids, even though it’s an amazing resource.  My main concern is that it can be a huge time waster and addictive.  There’s a huge amount of material to sift through, and it can take a long time to get to the ‘meat’ of an area of interest.

    A couple of weeks ago dd9 and a friend were working on preparing a presentation for their geography club, so I sat with them at the computer to help them find their information.  When they get older, I do allow them to use the internet on their own – that’s for kids about 12 or older. We only have one computer and when combined with the number of people who want to use computer, and the limitation that they can only use it when their chores and academic work are completed, they naturally can’t/don’t spend huge amounts of time online.

    Each of the older three kids have their own interests.  Ds16 is probably the one who needs to use it the most for research- he has a particular area of interest that he’s constantly learning more about, and though he’s read books on the topic, he enjoys the online resources he’s found.

    My second concern about the internet is the huge amount of offensive material that could be accessed.  I’m not concerned about the kids seeking out unwholesome materials as much as realizing that they could accidentally click on a link or mistype something that could take them somewhere unsavory.  We keep the computer in an area of the house where people are always around.  My husband and I have recently discussed getting a filter, too. Until fairly recently, like about a year ago, our kids weren’t using the internet much so it didn’t seem necessary.  But now it seems prudent.

    We also until recently had an older computer that had some kind of problem that kept us from being able to see youtube videos or other high definition graphics – I considered this an advantage. 🙂  Even though there are loads of educational things on youtube (this is how I learned how to preserve tomato seeds for planting), there are lots of others that aren’t okay and when you view the main screen, there are often objectionable pictures or titles that you can’t help but view.

    So while I’m not against it, I’m careful to limit it.

    Avivah

  • How can you stand to be around your kids all day?

    >>you get so much credit for not losing your mind being home every single day with 8 kids. really.<<

    Quick correction – there are actually nine kids. 😆

    At the camp my dd13 was working at this summer, there were two adult women and another teen assistant in addition to her.  She came home one day, once again telling me how amazed these two women were about me.  I asked her how they could be impressed by me when they don’t know me from a hole in the wall?  She said “They can’t understand how you can have all of us around all day – they said they would go crazy.”   Now you see how easy it is to show you’re made of the stuff of angels – be able to tolerate your kids without checking in at the loony bin and that’s all the proof anyone will need. 🙂

    “How can she stand to be around her kids the whole day?  I mean, I like my kids but I don’t like them that much.”  My dd has heard me say I think it’s unfortunate that this is such a common sentiment, but this is the first time she’s heard it herself, and this is exactly what she was asked.  The women told my dd that Shabbos and Sundays are the hardest days of the week for them, because their kids are home (one was, ironically, a preschool teacher).  One went on to tell dd:

    “My kids get bored all the time.”    My dd13 responded, “That’s because they go to school so they’re used to being entertained.”  “Really??”  This took the woman aback – she clearly had never considered this.    After they asked her these questions and more, they continued discussing their perplexity with one another about me.   “It must be the kind of personality that she has.”  “Maybe all of her kids were just born good.”  They were ‘mystified’, to quote dd.

    My dd was laughing when she told us about this since she knows quite well that I’m a regular mom and that she and her siblings weren’t all ‘born good’.  She said it seemed like they knew what they were offering as reasons couldn’t be the answer but they couldn’t think what else it could be.

    So are you wondering what the answer is??  🙂  I can reassure you that I wasn’t born with a special personality that equipped me to enjoy my kids any more than anyone else!  By nature I’m not an especially patient person nor was I one of those women who just loved being around kids before having my own.  Those qualities have been developed over time.  See, you don’t need to be naturally saintly to enjoy having your kids around!

    The secret to enjoying spending time with your kids, is to spend more time with them and make it enjoyable!  When you spend relaxed time with your children, you enjoy them and are pleasant to them. They then respond to your pleasantness by behaving better and wanting to please you, to which you positively respond by wanting to spend more time with them…..  It creates a positive spiral between you and your children, and this positive spiral is what makes it enjoyable for parents and children to spend lots of time together.  Everyone likes being around people who love and respect them, right?

    It’s not hard for me to be around my kids because I like them.   I don’t mean that I love them – all parents love their children.  I mean that I really like them.  (Having well disciplined children makes this much easier- your positive view of them isn’t constantly being overshadowed by their bad behavior.)  And as kids get older, they just get better and better.  I’ve said it a couple of times before, but teenagers are awesome!  They have the maturity and critical thinking skills to have really stimulating conversations and fun interactions.  It’s kind of like getting to be around your friends all day.  The myth of impossible teenagers is really a shame, since everyone buys into it and it becomes a self perpetuating reality, and parents end up missing the enjoyment of an amazing stage in their childrens’ lives.

    Even though this concept is so simple, it’s foreign to our culture.  Parenting is supposed to be hard, filled with struggle and aggravation.  Motherhood and martyrdom seem to go hand in had.  When someone tells me how wonderful I am for spending so much time with my kids, I know they just don’t understand.  Raising children is work; it takes lots of time, energy, and effort.  But I’m not suffering or gritting my teeth every day – I’m so grateful and feel so blessed; I often feel that it’s not fair my husband has to go to work all day and doesn’t get to spend the kind of time I do with the kids.  It’s true that it took work to get to this point, but the hardest thing was probably to let go of my ideas that being around my kids was something to be endured.

    Avivah

  • Raising expectations without being a drill sargeant

    >>I am trying to get the kids into a different set of expectations (things got a bit too chilled with all the insanity that went on here over the past few months). I’m kind of being overly strict to get to the middle point (as per the Rambam, perhaps). I feel/figure that once they know Mommy means business, things will flow much smoother. The problem is I feel like a drill sergeant and I don’t want the kids to feel like they are in boot camp (nor do I want to make homeschooling a miserable experience). What can be done? Am I wrong in being stricter for a bit? How can I make it work best so I don’t feel like anyone is being treated unfairly?<<

    I think it’s natural to go a little more to one side when you’re changing your standards and trying to get to the golden middle path.  I know I did.  Don’t worry about being stricter.  You’re right that life gets much easier when your children know you mean what you say – there will be much less testing and provocations at that point.

    The issue isn’t your strictness, it’s the lack of joy that tends to go hand in hand with strictness. It”s not fun for the kids to feel you have your eagle eye on them, waiting for them to do something wrong and then correcting them every other minute!  And it’s not fun for you either. We think of being strict as being emotionally distant and somewhat harsh, right?  But that’s not what it’s about!

    This is where you’re going to have to have a mental shift, and realize that a mother can be fun to spend time with even when she’s raised her expectations and is being firm (a word that I think is more accurate for what I’m describing than strict – my kids don’t consider me a strict parent)!  Discipline shouldn’t be punitive; it’s about teaching and training. There’s a big difference between punishment and training, and the more you can internalize the difference, the more effective you’ll be and the less conflict you’ll feel.

    So the answer is, when you’re raising your expectations of your kids, you must, must, must be making spending relaxed and enjoyable time with them a priority.  Read more books, play games, dance with a kiddie cassette – whatever you enjoy.  You’re keeping them close by but that shouldn’t mean tuning them out while you are online for long periods of time and then snapping at them more than usual because their proximity is annoying!  Kids being on a short leash doesn’t mean being in the figurative doghouse all day long – it means getting to be close to you for more time than usual, and should be enjoyable for all of you.

    I think I mentioned last week that keeping your kids close can be draining.  It’s draining in a different way than yelling or having constant power struggles with a toddler; this is positive all around but still takes energy, especially in the adapting stage.  Make sure you’re getting enough sleep at night, and take time to rest in the middle of the day, even if you can’t actually nap.  If you make your main focus really spending time your kids and doing things you all find enjoyable, then the supervisory aspect becomes more of a technical function (and there’s less need for constant corrections since you’re catching things when they’re pretty minor) and less of an emotional function.

    Does that clear things up a bit?

    Avivah

  • Enforcing chores

    >>hi avivah! i am wondering if you set certain standards for jobs? for example, whoever does the bathroom must do the floor, toilet, counter, garbage, etc. i found that i needed to make checklists for jobs like that, and nobody did it thoroughly, and although i was willing to supervise once or twice, i ended up feeling like a prison warden. <<

    Yes, I do set standards.  At the beginning of the year I explain to all of the kids who will have that chore what is expected.  Then at the beginning of their month (or two weeks, depending what the job is), I give a quick reminder.  I do periodic checks, but not every day.

    I let my kids know that it’s worth it to do the job right because if I see it’s done wrong………you guessed it, they get more opportunities to practice doing it right!  If it’s once, I’ll tell them to correct it, but if it’s more than three times that they’re doing things in a shoddy way, they’ve earned themselves an extra amount of time on that chore.  That might mean doing an extra week on this chore after the cycle changes, or it might be an extra job somewhere else. It depends on the specifics and what I sense will be most effective at that time.  I’ve done this on a number of occasions and they know what to expect.

    >>also, what are your consequences for a shoddy job? like if one of your older kids decided to just make toast for breakfast every day because they didn’t feel like making anything more? would you step in and correct that? would you encourage in a different direction? or is part of them becoming internally motivated that you stay out of it? thanks, as always, for the great advice! you are the voice in my head that keeps me headed in the right direction!!<<

    I post the weekly menu plan on the side of the fridge.  For the person on breakfast duty, I try to show them the recipe I have in mind the night before, so they won’t be held up if I’m not up when they’re ready to start.  Sometimes, usually on Sunday morning (when the complete week’s plan usually hasn’t yet been posted) or the first of the month (when the new person is taking over) there will be a morning where they’ll make what they think they should, because they don’t know what I want.  I’m absolutely fine with that. I can’t remember anyone refusing to do this.  If they did, I’d let them know they’ve earned the privilege of washing the dishes or cooking lunch and dinner for the day (or week, if it was said with disrespect) as well as making breakfast.

    So for your question about if I’d step in or not, it would very much depend what the motivation of the child was and what my level of concern about that particular thing getting done.  I’m actually pretty relaxed – I know, I probably sound like a drill sargeant with my extra work motto, don’t I? 🙂  But really, I view my kids as responsible, hard working, and know they want to do the right thing, so I feel there’s plenty of room to give the benefit of the doubt.  If they overslept and wanted to make something faster, it would be okay with me assuming oversleeping wasn’t a habit; things happens and I don’t expect perfection!

    But – here’s where I’m not relaxed: if someone is flouting authority  or being disrespectful.  If they simply didn’t feel like doing what I posted, then too bad.  Since when do you have to feel like it to do your job?  Sometimes kids need help developing good habits.  Doing the right thing is often not comfortable or easy, and they need our support and encouragement in overcoming their desire to procrastinate or take the easy way out.

    After saying all of that, the real question is what is your goal when having your kids do chores?  Is it to accomplish something specific in terms of character development, cleanliness level, smoothness of home functioning?  Or are you happy to have whatever help they can give you in the way they give it to you?   For me, it wouldn’t flow with my goals to let a child do whatever they wanted in spite of what I said.  But everyone has their own goals and will need to take different steps depending where they want to go.

    Avivah

    PS- After I write my response, I often read the question to my kids and ask them for what they would do and what they think I would do. Dd13 right away said the child has to make what’s on the menu and should make lunch in addition to breakfast.  Dd15 (she just had a birthday :)) said it depends how much you care if they eat toast every day, and if it’s fine with you, then leave it be.  As you read, I agree with them both. 🙂

  • What age to start giving chores?

    >>Since, I am a self-taught homemaker, I am not sure the best time and chore to start with for my children. At what age do you begin to assign chores? Is there a typical first chore you give them?<<

    Basically I look for things they can do from the time they are a young toddler (about 15 months) – usually this is a small piece of something someone older is doing.  They can put dirty clothes in a hamper, and carry one item to the laundry room.  They can pick up items from the floor and put them where I tell them. They can put their cup or plate in the sink (if you lift them up or take it from them when they get there).  When they are very little, this means me walking with them to where it should go, but they learn quickly and know that their dirty clothes go in the clothes hamper, so soon they start doing it with minimal prompting.

    None of this practically speaking makes your life any easier.  In fact, it will take more effort than not involving them- and that’s why most parents don’t have kids who help out in the house!  Be that as may, this is how I help my kids develop an understanding and a positive feeling about participating in the home tasks that need to be done.  I’m not so official around here that I assign very little children with chores.  What I try to do is make helping out an integral part of their lives.  When I see something they can do – and this is usually something very small – I give it to them with a big smile and an attitude of “oh, lucky you, you get to help!”  (And since I know some of you are wondering, if they refuse, I give them another big smile and say, “Yes, Mommy!”  This gives them a model of the response I want to see.)

    Kids will copy you, so sometimes they end up doing jobs that I wouldn’t have thought of giving them, and doing it well. Recently, for example, ds2 was watching me clean the walls.  He ran to get a rag from the rag drawer, went to the bathroom to wet it, and started vigorously wiping the area that I was cleaning.  So I let him do it by himself, and he did a great job.

    I don’t expect much until they are much older in terms of the final result.  What is important to me is them feeling good about helping out and getting the message that their help matters and is appreciated.

    Avivah

  • Attitude about kids helping

    A few weeks ago we had a family over for lunch, when towards the beginning of the meal the 11 year old girl looked at her mother and said, “Don’t get any ideas!” Nothing unusual or remarkable was happening and I was a little mystified at to what she could be referring to, so I asked and her mother said they noticed that several of my kids got up to serve the meal.  The daughter adamantly said she didn’t want her mother to start expecting them to bring the food to the table.

    A little later in the meal, the mother was describing her chore schedule to me, and her daughter grimaced and indicated that she felt she had to do too much.  I smiled at her and told her that she would feel very lucky if she knew the chores my kids do, and then told her.  There was some kind of response at how much my kids had to do, but then my dd14 who was sitting right there corrected her and said our kids don’t have many chores at all.  It’s all about perspective, isn’t it?

    I do expect my kids to help out, and to do it fairly willingly, and it was good for me to hear the response of the visiting eleven year old, to increase my appreciation of what my children do and how they do it.  I’m grateful that my kids find what’s expected of them fair and reasonable, since I try to be balanced in my expectations.  But the truth is that they do a lot more than most kids their ages.  Then again, they have a lot more freedom and flexibility in their schedules than most kids their ages, so I guess it all evens out!

    A big part of why they do what they do is determined by my feelings about teaching kids basic living skills.  That included cooking, baking, cleaning, laundry, child care, and general home organization.  There are other important skills, too, like money management, home repair, etc, that I consciously help them to learn while living at home (my post on teaching money management was one of those lost when the blogged was hacked a couple of months ago).  These aren’t gender specific skills – boys and girls will benefit by knowing them regardless of what roles they end up in later in life.

    All of these are skills you develop by doing them – you can’t just read a book!  By the time they are twelve, I want each of them to have the skills to basically be able to run a home.  That doesn’t mean that they do run my house, but that they can do it if they needed to.  I feel it’s a true kindness to teach a child these skills when they’re at home instead of sending them into the adult world without basic competencies.  That’s probably why I don’t suffer from guilt when asking my kids to help  – I appreciate their help and it obviously makes our home life run more smoothly, but I also know that they’re becoming well prepared for life.  I bet all of you know adults who are still struggling to learn basic skills – wouldn’t it have been so much easier for them have learned it when young?

    I’ll try to share our current chore chart next week for those of you who are wondering how the work in our house is divvied up.

    Avivah