Earlier I introduced Gregg Harris’ “attachment” principle for doing the many things that are important in our kids’ Christian upbringing. (Read Attaching Important Things To Your Schedule here.)

Today I want to introduce another paradigm that has kept us going in all of the myriad Christian training endeavors: If something is important to you, you will do it more often than you do not.

Simple, really. But it has kept us going when we felt defeated, overwhelmed, or unsuccessful in our parenting. No matter what was happening, we tried to follow that principle. When one of us got discouraged, the other would remind the first that we were, indeed, doing what we were supposed to be doing.

I haven’t done afternoon story time for two days in a row with Kara’s colic. Ray’s answer? All that matters is that you do it more often than you don’t. And I knew that it was true. I am not perfect. Managing a houseful of preschoolers certainly made perfection on a daily basis out of the question!

However, I knew in my heart of hearts what I wanted our home to be. I knew what I wanted my day to look like (and what it needed to look like in order to accomplish all that we wanted to accomplish).

We knew what we wanted in our children’s Christian upbringing. And we knew that as long as we persevered and did those important things “more often than not,” we could make it.

Make that your goal for new disciplines in your family—that if you plan to do devotions every school morning during breakfast, and you make it three of the five—you have done it “more often than not.”

If you want to read aloud to your tweens before bed during the week, and you read three out of the five weeknight bedtimes, you have done it—“more often than not.” And you are well on your way to success in carrying out the things that are important to you in your Christian parenting.

Raising children for the Lord is not a sprint. It is a marathon, or if you are married, a life-long relay. Running fast and hard at the beginning is not what will get you to the finish line. Slow and steady is what will get you there. And reading, praying, singing, talking, choring, playing, teaching, training, etc. “more often than not” will help you cross that finish line someday knowing that have done what you were supposed to do—without regrets for all of the “priorities” that never truly were priorities but just unfulfilled wishes.

How could the “more often than not” principle help you in your parenting? Would it bring freedom? Could it bring more consistency than you get with trying for perfection?

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The post More Often Than Not—The Secret to Consistency Without Defeat appeared first on Character Ink.

So now that you are convinced that “delighting in the dailies” will help you accomplish your goals, how do you get them started (and keep them going) during the initial stages—when there isn’t a lot of fruit to show for your efforts, and you are convinced some day that you should just forget making dinner and go play solitaire or buy some sort of farm equipment (on the computer…lol)?

Here are some tips for learning to truly “delight in the dailies” and make those dailies a long-term reality in your home:

1. Start out with a few of the very most important dailies—and make these things happen every day for a couple of weeks.

(See “Delighting in the Dailies—Part I of II” here.)

Don’t make a huge dailies list and wake up on Monday morning assuming that the magic list will all happen on that day. At times, my “dailies” (not including the children’s daily chores) could be thirty tasks long. If you are not used to doing certain things every day, this can be very overwhelming.

There are two ways to start tackling your dailies (which will eventually lead to your delighting in them):

a. Start with the four or five most important dailies for yourself and one or two per child and tackle these. Attach them to something that you already do every day (get up in the morning, eat breakfast, eat lunch, etc.). And start carrying them out over and over again. Once this is going well, add more. See my post about making a change a week or a change a month here.

b. Start with the first thing in the morning—and do your morning dailies only (for everyone in the family). (You might do others, but focus on making sure the morning ones are done consistently.) I often give the advice that when you want to change the way your days are going, start with the first hour of the day. Get this hour looking exactly like you want it to look (constantly!). Then move on to the next hour, etc. I personally like this approach because I love to make my day great by getting my morning started right.

2. Find someone who “delights in her dailies” and get a vision for this way of life from her.

Believe it or not, I actually knew several moms (either in person or through seminars/conventions) who were “delighting in their dailies” as many as thirty years ago! And this prompted me to make this a way of life. I could see the fruit of their daily disciplines, and I wanted that in my home as well. A well-run home is a beautiful thing, and we older moms need to teach and help younger moms learn these vital skills.

3. Believe in the daily approach to life.

Additionally, as an incremental type of teacher, I knew that “precept upon precept” and “line upon line” was the way that my children would master their subjects—and that incremental learning comes through dailies. I also knew from past experience that skipping things that needed done all the time in favor of things that either didn’t HAVE to be done or things that needed done less frequently didn’t work.

I had to believe in this approach in order to really carry it out. If you are waning in your ability to carry this out, make a list of all of the benefits to doing the dailies on your list (i.e. new reader will blossom through daily reading aloud to Mom, no more five o’clock scrambles for dinner, etc.). Pull this list out to help you “believe” when your faith is weak (and, once again, Farmville is calling!).

4. Notice the fruit (the real fruit!).

After a very short while, you will notice that something (or more than one thing) you have developed as a daily in your life is REALLY benefiting your family. Note this! If your struggling mathematician suddenly knows his x8’s because math drill became a daily for him, you have some juicy fruit! If your husband happily puts on his clean dress shirts in the morning (instead of the former morning clothing scramble!), then you have fruit. If you don’t dread four o’clock any more but actually sit down and read online articles for a while until sweet angels wake up from their naps, you have an entire fruit bowl! Notice it. Enjoy it. And realize that this fruit is there because you learned to delight in your dailies.

5. Believe that these dailies are truly the most important parts of your ministry to your family right now.

Anybody can swoop in and be a hero once or do something big here and there—and those have the potential to be ministries to your family too. However, when we understand and truly believe that what we do when we get up first thing in the morning is truly a ministry to our family, we will look at our dalies differently.

I know there are entire books written about the ministry of magic of motherhood. And they are right. But we have to do more than believe it in theory. We have to have it deep within us that when we consistently cook with our ten year old every day for lunch, we are doing God’s work. We have to breathe it in, take it in, and know it at that moment. When we lie down at the end of the day, we have to feel, believe, and KNOW that we have fulfilled an amazing calling on our life that day—because we did our dailies, God’s task list for us at this time in our lives.

6. Realize that you have accomplished a great thing.

Have you ever heard about the research for mastery in life? Some studies show that it takes repeating an action ten thousand times to become accomplished in it. Just look at each time that you do something (plan the next meal, do a reading lesson with a child, reach out to your preteen’s heart) as a step towards mastery. It really works. You will become so good at the things that you do over and over and over again!

It is rare to find a “work-at-home” mom who can juggle really well. How many times have you personally heard someone say that she could never do what you are doing—that she couldn’t spend all day with her kids or that she wouldn’t have the motivation that you have or that she can’t get organized without the structure of employment? What we are trying to do here—manage a home well, educate our children, and spend all day every day with kids—is not easy to do. If you continue to improve yourself as a home manager and a homeschooler, year after year, you will get more and more accomplished—and you will soon realize that you have done something very rare and very great.

7. But don’t get smug! 🙂

After delighting in your dailies for a while, and continuing to add more and more important dailies into your life, you will be amazed at the skills you have. Bask in that. It is such a great feeling to delight in your dailies. Such an awesome peace that comes with knowing that you are doing—day in and day out—what you are supposed to be doing. Actually, this feeling alone is enough to keep you going. (While I don’t advocate in living on feelings, there is a calm and peace that comes with doing what you are supposed to be doing—and THAT is a great feeling!) So enjoy it…but don’t be smug! Soon there will be someone else who wants you to help her learn to “delight in her dailies”—and you will be just the gal to do it!

In the meantime, here are some places to learn more about my beloved “Dailies”:

1) Short blog post: Dishes, Trash, Laundry Twice a Day

2) Short blog post on “after the Dailies”: Timely Tasks & ABC Weeklies

3) Video With Outline: Following Through on the Dailies

4) Video With Outline–How I Found My Dailies

Hope these help! Blessings to you as you seek to prioritize your life, school, and home!

The post Delighting in the Dailies—Part II of II appeared first on Character Ink.

We all want to raise children who love learning—and if they love homeschooling, too, well, that’s even better. I wanted my kids to love learning and homeschooling so much twenty-five years ago that I wouldn’t teach a child to read unless he could learn within a few weeks with no tears. (Otherwise, we put it on the back burner for a couple more months.) I was serious about this love for learning stuff!

However, in an effort to be sure our kids enjoy homeschooling, we often run into something that makes it hard for us parents to enjoy it—and something that actually handicaps our children in the future. This concept is one of indulgent homeschooling vs fun homeschooling.

Just like our children “don’t like” this or “don’t want” that or “have to have” this or “can’t be happy without” this–and thus, are often not happy with the “normal” things of life–so it is with our children in homeschooling.

Before I come off sounding like an ogre, I want to assure you that we had a fun homeschool. If you were to ask our children (seven of them ages seventeen through thirty-three) if our homeschool was fun, you would hear answers like the following:

“Oh yeah! Dad used to use these huge red pressboard bricks to teach Bible stories. We would build the temple, Zacchaeus’ tree, and even Jesus’ boat!”

“Fun? How many kids do you know who got to sleep at the top of the jungle gym at Science Central overnight—WITH their parents!”

“I can’t imagine more fun than having your mom read to you for two hours every morning and two hours every afternoon. School was definitely fun at our house!”

“It was a blast! When Mom and Dad got us new books and other fun things from the homeschool convention, they would wake us up at midnight when they got home and show us everything and start reading them to us!”

However, one reason that our children found homeschooling fun was because everything didn’t always have to be fun. Just like an indulgent child can’t be happy unless she gets to have a friend overnight, order pizza, and buy new make up to do make-overs often, a homeschooled child will not think school is fun if he has to have fun all the time. I call this the fun factor in homeschooling.

So, strange as it may seem, my first suggestion to making school fun and helping your kids love learning and love homeschooling is to not try to make everything fun.

Our kids knew fun times were coming. They knew that Mom and Dad loved learning and loved homeschooling and would make things fun at times. They knew that we had something fun up our sleeves to pull out any time.

But they also knew that school was their occupation–and it was often just plain hard work sometimes. And it needed to be done. Day in and day out. Just like Dad went to his job and worked his tail off–so Mom and the kids do the same at home.

Our mantra was “daytime is for learning and working and evenings are for fun and family.” (Obviously, we did fun things during the day too—see partial list above….but they knew that they couldn’t just do anything they wanted during the day. They needed to be learning, working, growing. It was their occupation. (And yes, we did have play time for youngers; breaks; etc.!)

We didn’t need to have bells and whistles all the time because they began to love normal (just like their parents did—hint hint–modeling!). They always knew the expectations, and they knew that every day they had to get up and follow a routine for learning, growing, becoming, and maturing.

They learned the joy of following a loose (block) school schedule, setting goals and meeting them, completing tasks, and of gaining knowledge.

They knew that there were many things we do just because they are the right things to do. Every subject, every day doesn’t have to be fun. Chores don’t always have to be games and contests–or rewarded (though sometimes they were!).

Independent lists were there to keep them on track. They were their to-do lists every day.

Chores were a part of our day because chores make a home run smoothly—and give us more time in the evenings for fun family activities.

We taught our children a contentment in homeschooling–in our way of life—that made the fun even more fun, the special even more special, and the extraordinary even more extraordinary.

The Fun Factor in Homeschooling–the fun begins when the normal is good too.

The post The Fun Factor in Homeschooling appeared first on Character Ink.

When homeschooling moms hear the word “schedule,” they either cringe or celebrate. It seems that there is a division of camps when it comes to scheduling. While those who “celebrate” the schedule might be guilty of micro-managing their children and maybe even putting undue pressure on them, those who ‘cringe” when confronted with the idea of scheduling might suffer from a lack of productivity due to their disdain for schedules.

I have found that you do not have to have a love-hate relationship with schedules, but rather you have to figure out which type of homeschooler you are—one who loves schedules and wants to follow one to the letter or one who doesn’t care for them and would do better with a looser type of schedule that still provides some sense of structure.

If you love schedules, then you will probably do better with a moment-by-moment, or at least hour-by-hour one to guide your day.

If you are “allergic” to schedules, you might find a block type of schedule in which you do certain things in a certain order during certain time periods to suit your time management style. I used a combination of both—but always had the “block schedule” in mind for even our toddlers all the way through high school. I divided our day up into

Early morning

Morning

Noontime

Early afternoon

Late afternoon

Early evening

Dinner hour

Late evening

While I might not firmly make 10:00-10:30 math for everybody, I always knew (and the kids always knew) what to expect based on the block of time it was.

Regardless of what type of schedule you use, there are a few key things to being successful in homeschool scheduling. I will leave you with a few of these: (a) Change the schedule every few months as needed, based on the ages of your children; (b) Write the schedule out and “advertise” it for everybody in your family to see all the time; and (c) Attach things that are really important to you to things that are already in your schedule.

(a) Change the schedule as needed.

I found especially with little ones that I needed to change the schedule to adjust to their needs and my availability. When I had littles, I actually revised the schedule every season—based on how long the baby was nursing at that time; how long the toddler napped; who could do which chores now; who needed longer blocks of school meetings with me; etc. I wasn’t locked into the exact same schedule for the entire school year, but I changed it as the children changed throughout the year.

(b) Write the schedule and “advertise” it.

I posted our schedules on the refrigerator, in the fronts of the kids’ binders, on their lesson plan/check sheets, etc., so that everybody could always look and see what was supposed to be happening in our day at a certain time. The lunch person always knew what time he or she was supposed to be in the kitchen; the laundry person always knew what time laundry was to be done each day. By “publishing” the schedule for all to see, I made it more official—and I could even get Dad involved in helping me enforce it if I had a true, posted schedule.

(c) Attach important things to things that are already in your schedule.

We learned this trick (along with dozens of others) from Gregg Harris twenty-five years ago—and have used it every year since then. He said that if something is really important to you to do in your family, attach that activity to an existing one. For instance, if reading aloud to your children is something you really want in your schedule, attach it to breakfast, lunch, or bedtime—times that are already established in your home. We did this with many, many things—attaching things to existing things until our attachments had attachments attached to them—and our day was one big attachment! 🙂

Scheduling your homeschool doesn’t have to be drudgery with everybody following thirty minute time boxes and nobody enjoying it. Make your schedule work for you and your family!

OTHER SCHEDULING HELPS:

[Video] Wondering Wednesday: Scheduling Q & A

Using a Block Time Approach to Big Work Days

Podcast Handout For ” How Can I Turn My Day From Chaos to Control? From Rowdy to Routine?”

The post Love-Hate Relationships With Homeschooling Schedules appeared first on Character Ink.

If you have read my article about the Fun Factor in Homeschooling, you know that a lot of our homeschooling was hard work. Perseverance. Stick-tu-i-tive-ness. The daily grind. The day-to-day in’s and out’s. Teaching our kids contentment, work ethic, and study skills.

But we also had fun. A lot of fun. Not every subject. Not every hour. But in balance, we had fun in our school.

I pray that your family can find that fine balance between fun and just plain hard work. Homeschooling is a long, sometimes lonely, and always challenging endeavor.

As I have mentioned before, if we try to make it all fun and games all the time, our children will miss valuable lessons. However, if we omit fun from our homeschool entirely, we risk making everything else look better to our children than home.

Here are a few ways we made homeschooling fun:

1. We always started our day with Bible reading/character reading together–and ended that reading with a fun chapter book that we worked through together. (This was after each person’s morning routine and chore list, usually, and was sometimes during the kids’ breakfast eating.) Everybody looked forward to our continued chapter book readings. I read quite literally hundreds of chapter books aloud to the kids this way, and these are some of our most fond memories of all of homeschooling.

2. While we tried to get curriculum that fit each child’s strengths, interests, learning styles, etc., and I (Donna) did the bulk of the choosing, for extra things, we took the kids with us to smaller conventions (or let them look in a catalog to choose), and they picked out their fun “extras”–including chapter books they wanted to read that year, educational coloring books, audios to listen to, etc. (Yes, we spent a lot on our kids’ school. We live in a very old, tiny, non-fancy house with used furniture and old vehicles with lots of miles. We financially (and time and energy-wise) prioritized our kids’ education and family times over everything else.)

3. While we did many weekday field trips, we didn’t limit our field trips to school days. It wasn’t uncommon at all for us to take a Saturday to go to museums and zoos with Dad or to plan a long weekend vacation museum-hopping in Chicago. The kids knew that their education was important to both Dad and Mom–and wasn’t just something that Mom did, thought about, planned, and carried out.

4. In addition to our morning chapter book, I usually had chapter books going with various kids. I would have one that I read aloud to each of the three olders–plus another that we did as a family with Dad. Everybody worked hard so we could do our reading.

5. I should say after the #4 reading one that we did not have access to television stations or even computers with our olders. We had a big old television hooked up to a vcr–and we limited everybody’s watching to five hours per week (usually together). I need to include that here because when you don’t have television or computers, reading aloud together becomes a fun activity. While I don’t think we should run away from our society (not have a computer, act like technology doesn’t exist, etc.), we recommend highly limiting and controlling it so that the little things in life become sweeter. (See The Fun Factor in Homeschooling.)

6. Read the book/watch the movie. We didn’t do this formally, but we did it quite often. With so many book/movie combos out today, I would make this a homeschool tradition!

7. Add fun subjects. Our kids always got to do extra things they enjoyed like art, music, pottery, sewing, science kits, etc. We tried to expose them to different fun things to see what they were good at and where their interests took them.

8. Make PE a family affair. We tried to do a lot of our kids’ PE at home together. We had other families over to play. But we also just played as a family. We loved making up new games with various sizes and styles of balls!

9. Get cool school supplies. We didn’t do back-to-school clothes shopping, but we did let them pick out their binders, pens, crayons, etc. They weren’t limited to a list from a school with boring “16 Crayola crayons–no more, no fewer”—any style or color or pattern of school supply works at home! 😉

10. As our kids got older, we let them plan their subjects for the next year–and sometimes even choose the books.

11. Also, as our kids got older, we let them plan their school schedule/order with us for the year. As long as it worked and they completed their lists, they could continue to make choices about these things.

12. School with another family. We often did field trips, activities, unit studies, days away, etc. with another family or two of kids. We got together to do gingerbread houses and crafts, etc., every Christmas.

13. Do anything different than what kids around you are doing! Our kids loved the fact that they didn’t have to get on a bus early or they didn’t have to stay inside at a desk if it was nice out. Or we could go to the park for lunch and some PE on any given day. Point out the fact that homeschooling affords us so many activities and opportunities that those in school can’t do or enjoy.

14. Take fun field trips! If you have heard us speak or follow our blog, you know that our older kids are extremely proud of the fact that they (along with Mom and Dad) slept at the top of the jungle gym at Science Central, in the snake room at the zoo, and on the soldiers’ “cots” at the fort. Go for the unusual, and they will remember them and love homeschooling because of them.

15. Do story time from birth. There is nothing like shared picture books with little kids. And there is definitely nothing like the memories of reading picture books every afternoon with momma for ten years. I’m telling you–this is what memories are made of.

I could go on forever and ever about how much we love homeschooling; how we tried to make it fun (but not so fun that normal wasn’t enjoyed!); how we put our time, money, strength, and energy into raising our children in this homeschooling lifestyle–and how much they, as adults, are grateful to us for it.

The post Ways We Made Homeschooling Fun appeared first on Character Ink.

Welcome to another Wondering Wednesday!

Because we are swamped writing and editing our new Peter Pan and Jungle Book writing books. And because we have had a lot of great posts, freebies, etc., about chores, I thought I would do a sort of round up for you today of podcasts that might help you with chores, schedules, home management, and more!

So here you go….

PODCASTS FOR CHORES AND MORE

You can download our cute printable posters, “Age Appropriate Chore Posters”  at our store by clicking on the picture below!

Let me know what you would like to hear more about and how we can help you!

Love and hope,
Donna

The post Podcast Roundup: Chores & More appeared first on Character Ink.

Listen to the podcast HERE!

 
TWO IMPORTANT TIPS

(1) Don’t think big—don’t try to do it all tomorrow! Start small. Solve little problems one at a time. Fix things in certain order that will bring you control.
(2) You can get better and better at organizing, scheduling, prioritizing, and home management

Consider Your Situation

1. Ages of children in school—how much one-on-one time; how much small group work; how much independent work
2. Training of children in school—how well they work independently, how much help they need; how much they can help the family on chores and following through by themselves
3. Babies, toddlers, and preschoolers—how many; their needs; and whether you have a child-run home or the littles fit into your family’s schedule
4. Work outside the home or work at home above and beyond homemaking and homeschooling—big factor; your time is even harder to come by!
5. Type of teacher and home manager you would be if you could be (!)—loose schedule; extremely structured; etc.
6. Number of children total—in school and littles; including number of helpers and how well they work
7. Special circumstances—husband home during the day; food sensitivities in which you have to cook completely from scratch; etc.

Think in Terms of Time Blocks (Not Minutes or Even Hours)—Don’t worry about starting time of each block!

1. Early morning block (or not!)—morning routines, first chore session, breakfast, breakfast clean up
2. Mid morning block—together time
3. Late morning block—tutoring sessions and independent work
4. Noon block-another chore session, lunch, lunch clean up
5. Early afternoon block—stories, more tutoring, more independent work
6. Late afternoon block
7. Dinner hour block
8. After dinner block

Consider Big Picture Scheduling Tips

1. When can you work with kids on school?
2. Least interrupted times for tutoring sessions
3. Chore schedules and sessions in place
4. Schedule for your family—not because it works for someone else
5. Independent work lists for kids
6. Letting teens determine their own schedule
7. What time do you want to be done
8. Beware of overscheduling
9. Meeting all together any times?
10. Attach important things to things already in schedule
11. Consider tutoring sessions rather than daily meetings whenever it fits
12. Keep paperwork/lesson planning on paper to the minimum that works for you

Getting Control Out of Chaos—Practical Steps

1. Get the first hour of your day exactly as you want it—do not worry about rest of day; do not let anything detract you from this goal
2. Teach kids morning routines next
3. First chore session of the day
4. Get a handle on independent work
5. All together time in place
6. Tutoring sessions
7. Second chore session in place

Considerations for Morning Routines—no electronics until completed

1. Mom—shower, Bible, straightening bedroom, dressed and ready for day, something out/started for dinner that night, exercise if possible, time with littles
2. Olders—shower, Bible, personal areas, make bed, exercise
3. Littles—dress, mess, room, groom

Considerations for First Chore Session

1. Attach to something (breakfast?)
2. Make it 20 to 30 minutes long
3. Everybody working at same time
4. Put most important things in this session—one load of laundry, wipe down bathrooms, picking up/decluttering, unloading dishes, trash everywhere, fixing breakfast, etc.

Links:

(1) Podcast Episode: Foundations for Becoming an Efficiency Expert
(2) Podcast Episode: Children and Chores
(3) Podcast Episode: Toddler Troubles
(4) Podcast Episode: What to Do With a One Year Old
(5) Podcast Episode: What to Do With a Kindergartener
(6) Blog Posts: Chores
(7) Blog Post: Independent Work Lists
(8) Blog Posts: Morning Routines
(9) Blog Post: Dishes, Laundry, Trash—Two Times a Day
(10) Blog Post: Organizing as Easy as ABC
(11) Blog Post: Terrible Task List
(12) Blog Post: Delighting in the Dailies

Listen to the podcast HERE!

Print this post.

The post Podcast Handout For ” How Can I Turn My Day From Chaos to Control? From Rowdy to Routine?” appeared first on Character Ink.

Click here to download the printable handout.

Subscribe to our Wondering Wednesday podcasts in iTunes.

Click here to see our previous podcasts!

The post Podcast: How Can I Turn My Day From Chaos to Control? From Rowdy to Routine? appeared first on Character Ink.

Twenty-five years ago when I was a young mother, housewife, and homeschooler, I had trouble getting all of my work done every day–while teaching a young son to read, keeping a curious preschooler out of everything, taking care of a toddler, nursing a baby, etc. Truly the statement “the days are long but the years are short” was never more real to me.

I had problems that many people who are “self employed” have–plus the added “benefits” of having a lot of littles around making messes and needing seemingly-constant attention. (I really do think they are benefits–but when a man is self-employed, he usually doesn’t have to take care of a home, feed a crew, and provide constant care and supervision to little kids! He just, well, works!)

The greatest problem that those of us who are self employed and/or homeschoolers and/or housewives with littles is that of prioritizing. The second greatest is motivation. Why clean this up when it is just going to become a mess again in thirty minutes? Why fix a hot meal….three hours later, I will need to start another hot meal!

I have found many ways to get the motivation needed to make it through those days of many littles and lots of homeschooling needs–but that would take a book to explain, so for today, I would like to address the concept of prioritizing.

When I had little kids, I loved creating systems–toy storage systems, closet organization, bookshelf perfection. These were things, however, that should not have been high on the priority list. The priority list needed to include daily work, like dishes, laundry, meal preps, child cleansing, reading lessons, and unit studies. Not systems!

My husband would come home at the end of the work day, and I would take him by the hand and lead him through the house, making a path through clean laundry, unbathed children in pj’s, and stacks of dishes, to show him the toy shelves with all of the toys sorted into baby wipe containers with picture labels on each shelf so that the kids could put the toys onto the right shelves. It didn’t even dawn on me that I should have done dishes and laundry BEFORE doing those amazing toy shelves.

After he saw my prize-winning shelves, Ray would roll up his sleeves (literally) and dig in to help bail me out from my day of misplaced priorities. We would get the dishes and laundry done; he would call me “closet lady” –and then we would often repeat the cycle again in a few days. 

As we added more children to our home (and more kids in school), it became obvious that I could not continue to put contact paper on every box that came in the house and hand make labels with bright magic markers. Something had to give–and it was then that I came up with the solution to all of our laundry and dish (and trash!) problems:

Treat laundry, dishes, and trash just like brushing my teeth. I brush my teeth at least twice a day (sometimes three or four if I eat something spicy or I am going out in the evening). And I began doing the same with dishes, laundry, and trash. 

We still adhere to the below schedule twenty-five years later–though I have seldom done this daily work once the two oldest children could handle these tasks, about ages ten and seven–the youngest child or two of the family who can handle the work has always done the daily tasks (so that we more, um, accomplished kids and parents can do harder jobs, like cooking, shopping, cleaning out freezers, weekly bathroom cleaning, discipling teens, mentoring young adults, teaching fractions, organizing closets (!), etc.).





                    TWICE A DAY LAUNDRY, DISHES, and TRASH TASKS


Bedtime: (1) Run the dishes from the evening in the dishwasher
 (2) Put laundry from earlier in the dryer (“fold ups” only; we have always done hang ups in the moment, moving it before it spins out and hanging it up when it is nearly dry so that we don’t have to iron)
3) Start another load in the washer before sleeping

Morning: (1) Unload dishwasher and put away any big dishes that were drying on the counter after last night’s dinner
(2) Fold and put away laundry in the dryer
(3) Move washer load from washer to dryer and dry it
(4) Gather trash all over the house in the big bag out of the kitchen trash can and take it all out; replace bag

Noontime: (1) Do second load of laundry in dryer (fold and put away)
(2) Start tonight’s first load of laundry in washer
(3) Load dishes from breakfast, lunch, snacks, and cooking and run dishwasher

Evening chores: (1) Unload daytime dishes
(2) Load dinner and dinner prep dishes
(3) Bag kitchen trash again and take it out (we only gather from everywhere else once a day, in the morning)


This assumes chore sessions are in place. Even if you do not have good chore sessions right now, you can start with a five minute session before or after each meal and get laundry and dishes done then (even if it is just you doing them). Four five minute sessions can keep everything up if you have a dishwasher. (Note that we do a load or two of “hang ups” in another chore session in addition to that twice-daily laundry schedule. “Hang up” laundry is a weekly chore, separate from the daily laundry.)

When I didn’t have a dishwasher, I still kept this same routine, but I just kept hot sudsy water in the sink all day (reviving it as needed) and washed dishes and put them in the drying rack as I had them, definitely at least after each meal, but I (or a child) would often run out and wash a sinkful here and there.

Doesn’t TWICE A DAY for each chore (fully done–trash, laundry, and dishes) and twenty total minutes of work a day sound completely doable??? It is! You can do this!

Twice a day–just like brushing your teeth!

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I have a question about reading to my young kids! I have a 4, 2, and 1 year old. The 1 year old hardly sits still to be read to, but my question is specifically about the 2 year old. He is always asking me to stop reading as he has questions about everything on the page, or wants to ‘count’ something, or he is flipping back through pages wanting to talk about what we just talked about. Again. What do I do? Let him be in charge of how we go through the book and what we talk about – possibly never finishing the book? Or ask him to wait until the end of each set of pages and then not let him turn them back? OR tell him to be quiet the whole time?! Any feedback and suggestions are welcomed

Story Time Questions

I treated story time much like I treated unit studies (or “subject reading” as Joshua used to call it when he was five!). Here are some basics for that first:

(1) Story time is a privilege that is earned…not something you automatically get to do (as were unit studies). Thus, there was a readiness that was needed in order to join story time: the ability to lie in the bed with everybody without moving too much, getting up, etc. (We used to do a two hour story time in bed followed by a two hour nap…even me! For real! Amazing, huh? Ray worked twelve or thirteen hours a day, and I seldom went anywhere…plenty of time to get everything done, read for hours, AND take a nap! LOL) This pretty much eliminated anybody under two joining our regular story time. If these guidelines were not met, the child just went to bed for his nap (with books in his bed and one side of a story tape), and he could try again later in a few days (not a bunch of back and forth and in and out)….this takes me to my next “basic.”

(2) We always taught to the oldest. Everything we did at first was based on our oldest two kids—the others could always join, but we emphasized our older kids for sure. This is often opposite of what families with untrained littles do. They often do not see how they can focus on the olders when they continue to let one, two, and three year olds be too high need. Just my two cents… 😉

(3) In light of always teaching to the oldest, we wanted unit studies and story time to be the most effective that they could be for the older kids. If we allowed a two year old (or one year old) to monopolize that time, this simply wasn’t happening.

(4) That is not to say that we did not do things with the littles or that we didn’t consider their needs. But we didn’t let their “wants” keep us from meeting our older kids’ needs (educationally, spiritual training, fun times, etc.).

Specifically Story Time

(1) Children who were not old enough (i.e. not “ready”) to join story time every day had their own story time. Those older kids that we spent so much time with and on cleaned the kitchen after lunch each day while I rocked, read to, and did rhymes and stories with the toddler. (This was actually the beginning of weaning for us—replacing the noon nursing with the toddler’s own story time!) This allowed the toddler to learn to enjoy reading without interrupting the olders’ story time. It also signaled a change in schedule, slowing down, etc. And it provided routine so that the toddler knew what was next. (After his story time, he got “dropped off at the bus stop” (carrying the bus stop approach to unit studies into the story time example)—his crib for his looonnng (three to four hour!) nap. (How else was I going to do a two hour story time and two hour nap for myself!?) Note: This was ten minutes long tops.

(2) Children who were old enough gathered their books. Whoever’s day it was did the following: (a) get the book basket with our ongoing books (Family Bible Library or whatever ongoing Bible study that we didn’t already do for unit studies—I did two a day besides devoes; chapter book; poetry or hymn books; longer picture books (especially our Answers in Genesis picture books, which were longer), nature book/magazines, sometimes biographies, but these were usually done in the mornings, etc.); (b) got two books from the bookcase or library basket; and came to my room with those things. Everybody else got their one book choice. The person whose day it was got to sit closest—and his books were the first and last read. (Who says you can’t make things special when you have so many kids or do things more “individualized”????)

(3) We always kept book markers (or “picks” as my kids called them) in our ongoing books and just picked up where we had left off the day before. Eventually, we got through tons of chapter books, nature books, etc., using this method.

(4) If a child was able to come to story time but necessarily for the whole two hours, we used the “bus stop approach” that you have heard me talk about with our unit studies. In that way, we would do all of the picture books first (shorter books with pictures like the Five in a Row books, children’s classics, whatever they picked. Then, just like in unit studies, the two or three year old would be dropped off at the bus station (i.e. beds for naps). More often than not, they would just fall asleep before we got to the harder books. If we did story time on the sofa, I would send them to bed for their naps when they were getting too fidgety or tired. (And they could have one side of a story tape once they got there.) Note: For unit studies, I did the same thing—started with easy materials then moved to harder ones. At a certain point, the littles could be dropped off at the bus station—but instead of going to bed for naps, they could stay in the room and play quietly on the floor, which they almost always chose to do. (At some point in unit studies, the littles would often have room time that we had set up ahead of time.)

(5) Then once the littles were asleep or in bed, we would move onto the ongoing books and chapter books. I tried not to make it a repeat of unit studies, but my kids often picked the creation books, nature books, etc. I did try to save the more fun books for story time, generally speaking.

So what does this mean in answer to your questions specifically?

(1) If your two year old isn’t ready even for the easy part of story time, I would do the short story time alone with the two year old and one year old.

(2) If the two year old is ready, but the only problem is the questions, I would consider any of the following ideas:
a. Let him choose the first book and tell him this is his “question book.” For this book only, we can stop a lot, answer questions, etc. (Oh…those interactive books that the two year olds had to do everything to…..brutal!) This is his story, and you can use it as a quality teaching time for him.
b. For the rest of the books that he stays for, tell him he can have one “excuse me.” This is one time that he can have you flip back, answer a question, etc.
c. Let him take the books that he has the most questions or that you know he wants to know more about to bed with him—and tell him after his nap he can bring the book to you for more questions.
d. If he can’t do the one “excuse me,” just let him be interactive on the first book only until he can handle it. (Always match privilege with responsibility in all aspects of parenting.)

(3) While you are trying to find what is comfortable for your family, always keep in mind the olders. Don’t let story time turn into something they dread or something that they do not benefit from by letting littles (even though they are amazing and sweet) monopolize it.

Hope this helps! I have to end with a cute story time story. When Joshua (our oldest) was around ten, he decided that he was too old for story time. (They never outgrew unit studies but eventually did story time.) So on the day he decided to not come to story time, I was lying in bed with four other littles reading away when I heard a noise in the hallway. He was sitting on the floor in the hallway listening. I told him he could join us, but he said he was just resting. Next thing I knew, he was sitting in the doorway. Then on the floor beside the bed. The, of course, across the foot of the bed! The next day he joined us for quite some time thereafter! 🙂

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