Then I became a parent. You know what? Amazingly, kids make really bad employees! Even when they do begrudgingly do the task I've given them, they rarely ever do it the way I would like for the chore to be done. I mean, how is a room with toys and clothes on the floor clean? Do they not see the stuff on the floor? Do they think I don't see it?
I started just doing the tasks myself. It was easier and faster to do it myself than the demanding, cajoling, rationalizing, threatening, bribing and yelling it took to get my kids to clean up their own messes. Plus, once the job was done, it was done well. So I kept doing... and doing... and doing. Until there was a problem. Several, actually.
What happens when we do everything for our kids?
1. I was exhausted. All. The. Time. There were just not enough hours in the day to take care of all of my chores and theirs unless I have absolutely no additional time commitments like a husband, for instance, or a job, church, friends, school functions/commitees or homeschooling, etc. And what was that other thing people do called? Shlep? sloop? Oh, right; sleep!
2. Since I was exhausted and spending all of my time with my kids being frustrated, I turned into Mrs. Crankypants and was no fun at all. Or so I've been told. Seriously. It's difficult to be patient or fun when all you can think about while you are with them is that they are dumping out all the toys you just spent an hour picking up.
3. I eventually became so tired and overwhelmed that I gave up. It did get us out of that frantic mode, but then I was embarrassed to have friends over, I couldn't relax because everywhere I looked was something that needed to be done and we wasted time and money looking for or replacing items we couldn't find. My poor husband. He got to come home from working all day to a messy house, a stressed out family and usually fast food for dinner. Can we say NOT a good situation?
And the big one
4. The kids began to think that everything would always be taken care of for them. They began to make less and less effort to take care of things themselves thus creating more and more mess for me to clean up. This also led to bad attitude as they began to see me as their servant rather than their boss.
Not that my kids are my servants but I am definitely not theirs.
How did this happen?
Like so many others before us, we started out with good intentions. There are plenty of resources out there for chore charts and reward systems. Our problem was not chore charts, allowance or anything like that. Our problem was me.
When I had a commitment to other people, whether it was school, church, friends or clients, I was "on it". I knew what needed to be done, made a plan and followed through. People knew they could count on me. It was great! It was easy! It was in small increments. Each task had a set goal and duration.
My commitment to my home and family was different. It had many, many more goals, complications (especially when the other people involved were not only Not helping but undoing the work I had already done!), and a much longer time frame. And I didn't get to take weekends off!
At home, I was disorganized and quickly became overwhelmed. Rather than planning ahead and making a schedule, we were living by "what Has to be done Right Now". There was no time for sitting and thinking through what we were doing. I was not giving clear directions or consistent consequences to my kids.
I would tell J to do a task and then, instead of overseeing it, I would be busy with my own. Inevitably, when I came to see the results, he would have gotten distracted and not finished and then I would be frustrated because we had to leave to get to an activity. We would leave with both of us frustrated and the task still incomplete. Sound familiar?
I couldn't discipline effectively because I was so busy trying to catch up on the chaos that I would not notice that B wasn't doing what I asked her to do for a while or forget that J had lost screens for that day. More and more things began to be left undone. I started just doing what needed to be done myself in order to half way keep up. And thus began the spiral.
I would tell J to do a task and then, instead of overseeing it, I would be busy with my own. Inevitably, when I came to see the results, he would have gotten distracted and not finished and then I would be frustrated because we had to leave to get to an activity. We would leave with both of us frustrated and the task still incomplete. Sound familiar?
I couldn't discipline effectively because I was so busy trying to catch up on the chaos that I would not notice that B wasn't doing what I asked her to do for a while or forget that J had lost screens for that day. More and more things began to be left undone. I started just doing what needed to be done myself in order to half way keep up. And thus began the spiral.
So how do we fix it?
As you can see, there were several issues at work here, so I needed a plan with several steps and facets.
The biggest issue to me was not the messy house but the attitude.
We had talked to J before about us all working together as a family to take care of the house but it was overshadowed by the frustration we were stuck in. Nothing changed. So we needed to make sure this time would be different.
We had talked to J before about us all working together as a family to take care of the house but it was overshadowed by the frustration we were stuck in. Nothing changed. So we needed to make sure this time would be different.
The first thing I did was that I stopped doing stuff for them. Cold turkey. If it was something that child could do, he or she needed to be the one to do it. I would only help when they really needed it. I told J (who was really the only one old enough to understand) that we were all going to start being RESPONSIBLE for our own things, messes and activities. I made it clear that it was not my job to pick up his dirty clothes or dishes or remember to get his lunch for class.
Then we started working on their attitude towards us, especially J since he's older. With B, she is only 3, so she corrects pretty easily. J is 8 and more strong-willed, so we started something similar to a swear jar except it was for talking back or being disrespectful.
One of the other things that I realized as I thought about it was that J still needed help breaking larger projects down into smaller ones, which played into his seeming inability to clean the mess in his room. A check list of specific items or categories of items has helped him know where to start. I have also noticed that he stays on task better if I am there with him so he has someone to chit chat with. I am working on how to do that while still being productive myself.
The next thing to work on was me. I had to be honest about my part in creating the situation I was so frustrated with. My lack of planning and organization at home had played a huge part in all of this! I had done a much better job for others than I had for my own family. Ouch! I needed to be RESPONSIBLE for my role as a teacher and role model even more than J needed to be responsible for picking up after himself.
Update: I wrote this several years ago. J is now turning 11, B is 6 and we have another 3 year old. Some of these issues are still at play (we so easily revert back to old habits) but I do have to say that the kids are more willing to help now. Their attitude, which is the most important aspect of this to me, has gotten much better. Of course, I still get side tracked and need to remind myself to take the time to sit down and plan, but I AM getting better. The kids still naturally just leave their stuff sitting wherever they used it. I have to "make" them go back and pick it up, but we are making progress. I will update more in my next post.
One of the other things that I realized as I thought about it was that J still needed help breaking larger projects down into smaller ones, which played into his seeming inability to clean the mess in his room. A check list of specific items or categories of items has helped him know where to start. I have also noticed that he stays on task better if I am there with him so he has someone to chit chat with. I am working on how to do that while still being productive myself.
The next thing to work on was me. I had to be honest about my part in creating the situation I was so frustrated with. My lack of planning and organization at home had played a huge part in all of this! I had done a much better job for others than I had for my own family. Ouch! I needed to be RESPONSIBLE for my role as a teacher and role model even more than J needed to be responsible for picking up after himself.
Update: I wrote this several years ago. J is now turning 11, B is 6 and we have another 3 year old. Some of these issues are still at play (we so easily revert back to old habits) but I do have to say that the kids are more willing to help now. Their attitude, which is the most important aspect of this to me, has gotten much better. Of course, I still get side tracked and need to remind myself to take the time to sit down and plan, but I AM getting better. The kids still naturally just leave their stuff sitting wherever they used it. I have to "make" them go back and pick it up, but we are making progress. I will update more in my next post.
