Chores

We started a new chore system this week.  I’m not one to be terribly creative in the chores/games/charts/stickers sort of way.  My amazingly talented sister does a new chore system every year it seems, and I’m slowly but surely learning from other moms as well that shaking up the system is good for everyone.  It gives variety to the dull, and it’s fun.  I’m not that “fun mom” but I’m totally at peace with that.  I’m the practical, “You’ll do it because I told you to do it” mom.  I’m learning, though, that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

Yep, we saw “Saving Mr. Banks” at our recent date night.  Great movie.

So this chore system was told to me by my friend Melissa, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that a mother with 10 kids has seen all, done all, tried all, etc.  The majority of the best advice I’ve received as a mother has come from Melissa, so I thought I’d try.  So this is the chore system she uses most, and she learned it from the Smockity Frocks blog.

So what you do is you get some paint cards, and you write a chore on each color.  A child is assigned a color for a week, and for that week he/she does the chores on their color’s card.  The next week the kids rotate colors.  The chores on these cards should be daily chores.  (In our family’s case, I decided on chores that needed to be done after breakfast, and after lunch.  That way we have a big clean up before school starts, and after most of the school is done.)  The add on that my friend Melissa did was put a note to get a “card from Mom” which is a stack of index cards she has with chores that need to get done, but not necessarily daily.

So, what I did was carry over the “personal” chores from my last chore system, and make sure each child knew that getting dressed and cleaning their room was still pretty standard.  That is written on the index card below each child’s name.  Silje also has the “feed animals” chore because, really, the animals are hers most of all.  She’s the one who wants to feed them.  She’s the one who spends time with them.  She’s the one who wants 20 more.  When David gets pigs, he’ll have “feed pigs” on his personal chores.  In other words, I don’t want to put “feed animals” on the color cards, and have that chore rotate through to just any child.

I figured out what to write on the cards by making a long list of the daily chores, and handpicking ones that could pretty much be done by Silje (9) or David (8) by themselves, or the Elias/Mommy team.  Elias is 5 years old, and has been extremely resistant to starting up chores this past year.  So I’m going to be his chore buddy, and we’ll spend some months doing chores together.  That way I can be sure that he’s getting trained in, and I’m not asking him to do things that seem too big.

Dishes are a HUGE chore in our house.  We don’t have a dishwasher.  I know.  I know.  If we ever renovate our kitchen I assure you the new one will have a dishwasher, but until then, every dish in this house is washed by hand.  So having a “kitchen” chore card would be too big for any one kid.  That card has 1 sink-load of dishes, wipe down the table, and wipe down the counters.  That’s it.  Sweeping the floor and picking up is on a different child’s color card.

Already I see that the chores I wrote on the cards don’t seem quite equal, so I may have some adjusting to do.  Either that, or whoever has a light loaded card will have a light week, and that’s not so awful either.

I picked chores that I never seem to get to, and are easy to delegate out.  Things like fold laundry and bring upstairs.  (The clothes are to be divided and set on the bed of the person who wears those clothes.  I go around and put the little kids’ clothes in their dressers, and the big kids put their own clothes away.)

Then there’s in index card stack of “extra chores.”  I graded the number of extra index cards based off of age, and put a little notice of that up as well.  I felt this was important not to put names of who got how many extra chore cards, but what ages got extra chore cards.  It worked too.  It wasn’t “Silje gets more work than David” it was “The 9-10 year olds get more work than the 7-8 year olds.”  The boys immediately understood that they would be expected to do more work as time goes on.

My index cards have things like “vacuum living room and den” or “bring slop out to compost” or “wipe down sink area in both bathrooms.”  Since Elias doesn’t have to do any of these extra chores, I saved some of the chores that would be easy for the older kids to tackle on their own.

So…day 1.  I was determined not to yell that morning, so help me.

I don’t know about you, but nothing, nothing as a mom, gets me yelling like trying to get my kids to do work.  My kids will be hard workers.  I’m determined.  I’m not about to raise a bunch of entitled, lazy children who think only of themselves and what the world owes them.  Does it sound like I have issues?  Yes.  Yes, I do.

Moving on, I was determined not to yell.  I had gone to all this effort to bring color cards into our chores routine.  The kids were excited about a new system, and I wanted to ride that enthusiasm for as long as it would last.  That’s why I was doing it.  I wanted a day without fighting them.  Heck, if I could get a week, that would be fabulous.  If they need games to do chores, we’d do games.  Let’s just get some work done.

First, I adjusted my expectation as to what I was going to be doing during all of this chore time.  I was going to not leave Elias’ side.  That was my plan.  Silje and David are old enough to come to me for questions, or handle it themselves.  Elias was in major need of training.  I wasn’t going to go on the computer, answer phone calls, feed a baby, get a snack, etc.  I was going to stick to Elias like glue, until I annoyed him so much because he could do the chore in his sleep that he tells me to go away.  I would cheer him on, give happy instructions, and just not leave.

That expectation was very helpful.

I then did what I had always done, and what my mom had always done, and blasted some fun kid music when chore time started.  People of all ages work better to music.  It changes the mood in the whole house.  Music to groove to is key.

Silje and David were excited about the new chore system until they read their cards and realized that I had written chores on them.  I don’t know why they were surprised that they had chores to do with the new chore system, but that’s how they appeared.  “What?! I have to do the dishes for a whole week?!?!”  “Folding laundry!  Ugh.  For everyone!”  The complaining lasted for about 1-2 minutes, which is about as much as they dared.  Then the work started.

With Ingrid at my hip, we started on Elias’ list.  He was already dressed and he said his room was clean.    Still, I told him we should do one more check.  As we went up to the boys’ room, I spent a lot of time showing Elias what things I look for when looking for a clean room.  Is the bed made?  What does it look like under the bed?  Are the clothes put away nicely?  What about any trash on the floor.  Can we make the desk top look nicer?  Maybe those Legos should be put downstairs.

It somehow morphed into us becoming detectives who were looking for messes.  I know.  Who am I and what have I done with Gretchen?  I turned into a fun-mom.

Picking up Legos in the living room, organizing the mess on the school table, sweeping the kitchen floor…we did it all together.

I would like to acknowledge, that this chore list isn’t especially long.  I could get this list done in 10-15 minutes on my own, and I’d expect my kids to get it done in 30-40 minutes.  We spent 2 loooooong hours on this chore list.  I restarted that kids’ music CD 4 times.  That’s how long it took all 3 of my kids.  Silje was actually the last done.

I had several breakthroughs, though.  The 2 hours was long, first, because Elias is not a quick fellow.  He hates being rushed.  Do you have a child like that?  If you rush them in anyway, they shut down.  This child does not like to be rushed, does not like to attempt things he think he may fail, frequently gives half-hearted effort, unless he’s in it to prove you wrong, and in that case he’ll put forth everything he has.  I’ll admit that the whole 2 hours my nerves were literally on end, and I was trying every relaxation technique on myself I knew.

I was determined not to yell.

The mother in me just wants him to learn by any means necessary and I’m terrified to break his spirit, and the adult in me just wants to do it myself because it would just be faster.  The realist in me doesn’t want to just coax him into doing what he needs to do, because let’s face it: the real world isn’t going to cater to him.  The real world isn’t going to make life easy and hand easy, perfectly suited work to them on silver platters and encourage every step and praise every good deed.

Then I realized, God didn’t ask this ambiguous “real world” to raise my children.  
God asked me.  

So the mother in me won out over the adult and the realist.  I was to see their struggles, and figure out how they tick, and see what works, and figure out what tools their unique personalities need for the real world.

So, with my middle child who works so slowly, and stops every 10 seconds to mope, I just joked with him.  I kept it lighthearted, and made our work funny.  It was easier said than done, but when I saw him come out of his shell, I kept it up.

We went all over as detectives doing our jobs.  There was no scolding.  I showed him what to do, and had him work alongside me as slow as he needed to.  He got faster.  He was enjoying himself.

He stopped every 10 minutes…not to mope…but to give me a long hug.  I can’t remember the last time he smiled so much.  Oh, he loved this time.  I was feeding his soul.

As for David?  Well, he had a crazy big pile of laundry to fold.  It was about 4 days worth, and I told him he didn’t need to do it all.  He was in such generous spirits, though, that he just kept going.  So he did them all.  I told him that I hadn’t done any over the weekend, so Monday would be the hardest day, but the rest of the week should be much easier.  He said he didn’t mind.  It’s possible he just didn’t want to do math next.  I don’t know.  I’ll take it.

And Silje?  Well, she had the dishes card.  She didn’t have that many, and she’s by far my best dishwasher.  Why did she finish last?

Because when I was with Elias and Ingrid in the other room, I expected Solveig to just play like she always does.  She saw everyone else working, though, and didn’t want to be left out.  So Solveig asked if she could help, and Silje patiently said yes.  Even though it meant that Silje had to move at 1/4 speed, she let her little sister help.  She looked for things she could bring her, or things that she could carry.  For awhile Solveig was standing next to her on a chair, helping her wash, but Silje was worried about Solveig falling, (Solveig sort of has a history of chairs and falling) so she talked and giggled with her as she made Solveig feel like she was the best help ever.

It melted me.

She wasn’t annoyed with Solveig, and never scolded her to go away.  She just invited her in without me asking her, or even suggesting it

…even though it cost her greatly in time.

As I reflect on this, I wonder: is this what it means to train a child to serve?  I used to think that training my child to serve involved training them to work hard.  I’m not throwing that idea out, but maybe to truly teach a child to serve, you must first show them how to see people, in their truest need.  What does this person need, and how can I meet that need?  Is that not the essence of service?  Is that not more valuable to just working fast and hard with no purpose but staying out of trouble?

As we spent half of our school day working out our new chore lists, which should have been done hours earlier, and it took so much biting my tongue, and digging deep to choose comment on the things going right rather than commenting on the 50 ways it could have been done better.

I can’t help but think that I’m learning the most.

I can’t help think that it was the best chore morning ever.

I can’t help but think that we (the kids and I) are finally getting it.

And I have really high hopes that it couldn’t possibly take 2 hour every day, and as refining as it was, I don’t know if I can handle that much refining everyday.  We’ll get better.  We’re each learning to serve.  Each in our own way.