My chore system at this time: We have 4 people on rotating chores. They change jobs each Sunday. The chores are: Dishes, Counters (which includes kitchen garbage, wiping off appliances, putting everything away that's on the counters as well as wiping them and the stove),Grinding grain (thank you Marla for that idea) and floors. Those children are ages 9-11.
Naphtali always clears and wipes the table. All of those chores take place after each meal and last 30 minutes.
Ephraim and Havilah are in the young adults category. They work at other times. Ephraim spends a lot of time with his college work, tending the fire, taking care of the goats and miscellaneous wood projects that Leon assigns him. Havilah milks the goat and cares for the chickens. We are excited to try out bee keeping and have just ordered our first two sets of bees.
Besides the after meal chores each room team is assigned one bathroom. They only use their own bathroom and they have to keep it clean. We have three bathrooms in our house so, Leon and I share with the Tree house and I never have to clean my bathroom (in theory).
It's not easy to train the children to do their chores. We have to all work together as a team or none of us will enjoy living here. Most of the time I am close by, managing the whole thing but, I can leave the room and they will continue to complete their tasks. I can occasionally leave the house with Ephraim in charge or another adult and the work will usually get done without any problems.
Please remember to err on the side of grace. Work is satisfying and feels good but, they have to learn this attitude. It took us years to train the children so that their "help" was actually helping. The littlest ones still seem to follow me around undoing what I do.
Your family should do things in it's own style. Don't listen to the voice that says, "you aren't as good as them", or "you should be doing it like them". No you shouldn't. You should be doing it the way the spirit leads you.
love, jeni
1 comment:
Jen, I totally agree. Each family is special, different personalities and expectations, different priorities and levels of cleanliness and of course with each house there are different needs as well. Country living is much different than town dwelling, wood stoves vs. electric heating etc. I like the teams idea, it is not as much fun to work alone.
Thank you for acknowledging grace, parenting with out grace is UgLy and if not for grace from the GOOD SHEPHERD in parenting we would all be failing miserably. So many times I fail, falling short. Ok, now lets cover school :) I am really enjoying this. Thanks for playing along :)))
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