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Tristan's chores
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I just read through your blog posts on chores, Tristan– and I NEED to do something like this. I have some questions:
How do you handle the once-a-week chores? (vacuuming, collecting trash, dusting)
Who tidies up the bedrooms? Our girls share rooms – so we have constant bickering about who’s mess it is, who’s room it is, etc.
How do you not get distracted?? I find that I set my girls to doing something and while they’re busy, I go get busy. Then they come and I’m supposed to go inspect – but on the way, something came up…..then I totally forget and it’s dinner time (lunch for us) and I finally notice that their rooms aren’t picked up. How do you get anything done if you’re running around checking up on the children? (One contributor to this is that we have a two-story home…I do all my upstairs chores before I come down to make breakfast, so often, I”m downstairs while the girls are still fighting about who made the mess on their bedroom floors.)
Laundry — I’ve been brainwashed by FlyLady(!) and I’m in the habit of doing one color group each day, so each color group gets done twice per week. Barn clothes and kitchen laundry on a daily or every-other-day basis. This means I have up to 6 or 7 loads on any day (Mon., Tues., and Wed. are the heaviest, because of Sun. being “off”). So I do laundry throughout the day, occasionally asking a girl or two to take care of a load or two or asking them to help me.
I think it would help the clothes-on-the-floor problem if the older girls did their own – but how would I schedule that???
Thanks in advance for the answers…and thanks for sharing your system.
Karen
Love the questions, let me see if I can answer them all.
We don’t have once a week chores. We need to vacuum and sweep daily with 8 kids. Ditto on trash. Now, the bathroom trash cans aren’t full every day so the children doing those check daily while cleaning the bathroom and do trash as needed.
Bedrooms are a group effort by whoever shares the room. We really try to emphasize that we work together no matter who made the mess. We’re a team. Even Mommy and Daddy pitch in sometimes. Just as I hope they will pitch in when they see others doing a job. We do get some complaints occasionally. When that happens the complainer gets to do the whole job alone. Ahem. They learn not to complain pretty quick.
We have a two story home as well. We have chore times in the routine so I go check at the end of chore time. For example, each morning chores are done after breakfast. So before I begin working on school with children I go inspect. If I were to interrupt to check each chore for each child as they finished I would never get anything done. So we keep chores to assigned times on the whole so there is a good checking time for me.
Tying chores to before mealtimes could help with their bickering. They don’t eat until chores are finished and you’ve checked them. This also would keep you accountable for checking if you don’t eat until inspection is done. 😉
Laundry – Err, umm, you wash colors separately? It sounds like too much work. We don’t even separate whites. There is one basket in each bedroom. Bedrooms house 3-4 people. The oldest in the bedroom starts laundry when the basket reaches a specific level. We literally drew a line on baskets for a while so they knew when the basket was ‘full’ and ready to wash. Next oldest in room switches the load to the dryer (they are told by oldest when a load goes in, and our laundry is right off the kitchen). Youngest in bedroom gets clothes out of the dryer and they all go put clothes away, right then if possible, or when they put pajamas on if not. So in reality I am only responsible for clothing for me, hubby, and the baby. It is a great real-life lesson for kids when they or a sibling don’t have clothing to wear because laundry wasn’t done by them. With so much laundry going on at your house I would make it a daily assignment for each room or group to do their load.
And confessions – we don’t fold or iron. Well, kids are taught how and allowed to do so if they wish, but I don’t do it and so far most of them opt not to.
If you have clothes on the floor do you mean in bedrooms dirty, or clean and not put away? If the first, that’s a bad habit the kids need to change with gentle encouragement. If the second, again, habit that can be changed, when the clean clothes make it to a bedroom they should either stay in a basket or get put away, not put on floors. Is there a basket in their room? That has been essential for us. We used to use one in the hall between bedrooms. It didn’t work. I don’t know why the extra 3 feet distance mattered, but clothes ended up on the floor more often. 🙂
Does anyof that help? Any more questions?
That is so helpful! I’ll mull this over and scratch things down and see if I can’t come up with a chore plan that will work long-term for us.
One other question – what happens when life gets in the way? I mean being awaqy from the house. For the most part, we can handle sickness, daddy-interruptions (he comes in and needs me or a girl to help him). But we can’t seem to handle absense from the house. I don’t have a set day for errands – I go as seldom as possible! So, we can’t really plan chores around errands.
Thanks so much! I really enjoyed reading your blogposts about the chores – it was inspiring, not discouraging.
Agree w/ Tristan, so much easier to dump all clothes in together! Separate?? I have never ever never separated and my/our clothes are just fine! Now I would wash separate a brand new red shirt in the beginning..but no longer after that! I am 44 and have been washing for a long time! 🙂
Yeah, we don’t sort either. Occasionally we might run a load of whites if we have a bunch at once – or I do sort if we go to the laundramat to use several washers at once – and I just do a loose sort while I’m piling the clothes into the various washers.
I used to have kids fold – but I’ve given up. My kids still end up with clothes all over the floor – they dump clean clothes on the floor while looking for what they want – and dirty clothes get on the floor…. If we have a basket in the room, they dump it to play with the basket. Right now, we have 4 baskets on the floor in my bedroom for clean kids clothes….. they get dumped on the floor at times – but at least I know those ones are clean and the ones in their room have been worn at least once. I HATE clothes!
How does them running out of clean clothes make a problem for them??? It just ends up being a stress on me!
Here is my schedule for me & the two kids who are 7 & 8.
kid #1 Mon-Fri unloads dishwasher & fills pets water dishes
Mon – gather kids dirty clothes and kitchen towels for washing & gather trash from both bathrooms
Tue – stock toilet paper & clean your room
Wed – dust living room & your room
Thur – Clean windows & toilet
Fri – Clean your room
Kid #2 MON-FRI Clean dining room table & floor and straighten bathroom, wpie sink & counter
Mon – gather parent’s dirty clothes for washing & Gather Office & living room trash
Tue – clip finger nails & toe nails and clean your room
Wed – dust office area & your room
Thur – clean mirrors and clean out tub
Fri – clean your room
My schedule: MON – SUN – load dishes into dishwasher & sweep kitchen & chore of the day
Mon – clean bathroom (mine) & fold clothes
Tue – Dust room & utility room/pantry
Wed – vacuum & finish up any clothes folding or hanging
Thur – Mop floors
Fri – Catch up & weekly chore depending on what week of month it is…
weekly chores – week 1 – clean out oven, microwave & fridge, & wipe down washer/dryer
week 2 – dust walls, baseboards, doors and light switches
week 3 – clean window sills and blinds or wash pets
week 4 – wipe down cabinets
Kids switch chores every other week jjust to change things up for them. HTH
Suzukimom- I make it a problem for them when they run out of clean clothes or their siblings do because the oldest didn’t start laundry. They have to ‘babysit’ the washing machine while it washes the needed clothes so they can switch to the dryer right away. 😉
Karen – when life gets in the way we try to get back on track as soon as we can. I am often gone several times a week with Mason for medical appointments. The children do their chores regardless. If one of them is gone unexpectedly chores may be done by a sibling or parent out of love and as service, but if not then they do them when they return.
Yeah – it seems we are most likely to notice a lack of clean clothes (or at least a lack of clothes where they are supposed to be) when we need to go somewhere….
I always separate laundry!! Whites, brights, and darks. *L* Isn’t it funny how different we all are.
Thanks, cdm2kk, for giving your schedule. This is great! Lots to ruminate on.
With 6 girls their is a WHOLE lotta laundry. I was just doing as needed but found the girls were cleaning their rooms by putting clean laundry back into the hamper. NOW every one has their own separate day! They have to start a load before breakfast, swap prior to lunch, during chore time, and prior to dinner, then while everyone else is doing dinner chores on their laundry day they clean the laundry room, and put their clothes away for the day. Even my 6 year old can do this. It’s amazing they no longer throw laundry in the hamper unless it is dirty and they each have their own laundry basket! We do chores in the afternoon prior to extra curricular activities so the house is fabulous for Daddy. Each girl has a Chore Zone for the day and we rotate the zones out through out the week so everything gets the needed attention. It is working Great for us. Along with a Morning and Evening routine, that part is flowing smoothly. It’s trying to get all the Highschooler, and Jr. High studies in through out the day while still trying to do group studies and get them to athletics in the afternoon. We are not getting it all done!
Oh, my word! Yes!! Jenmomof6, lots of laundry from girls. And that’s what mine do – put clean stuff (from the floor or after just being worn to church) in the hamper. *L* I used to do the same thing!
And your concern of not getting it done is one thing that scares me. I’m starting to give my oldest (9yo) more independent school work, to ease up the time spent on our together stuff. I also need some time for my middle two – one needs a little extra attention.
Now if I could just have a couple hours of solitude and quiet to organize this! *L*
I wrote the schedule down & put it in a page protector & they markk off each chore as they do it. At end of day, I double check them and if they didn’t do one to the best of their ability, then they get to fold laundry with me. 🙂
I usually do not have any problems with completion or it being done properly because they do not like folding clothes. LOL
Her blog is at http://ourbusyhomeschool.com
And is well worth reading
My kids would joyfully run out of clean clothes – they love to strip down naked, lol. They come by it naturally though, the second da is home his clothes come off. Anyone else’s husbands do this? I’m curious as to what age this might become awkward with my daughter. My kids are little bush children though. I think they would live naked in the forest if I let them!
Great tips on chores! Unfortunately, my laundry space is in the other suite in our home, and we have specific hours, so it doesn’t work to just send the kids down. They do help with getting it organized and come down with me to help run it though. I separate lights and darks, just because I have so much, since I can only do laundry a couple days a week, so it’s no problem filling out loads.
Rachel
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