Parenting

I was no great shakes as a mom, but despite that, my kids turned out pretty damn good.

One parenting thing of mine that my kids always bring up is how I approached getting them to clean their rooms.  Let me just say here that most of the time...I didn’t even care what state their room was in.  I figured their room was their space, and if they liked it looking like a war zone...I just shut the door and ignored it.

Once in a while, however, it became apparent even to me that the disaster needed to be addressed.  I have never had the time, energy, or inclination to stand and watch them clean their rooms, giving them directions on what, when, and how.  That’s Captain’s deal.

Me...I would simply tell them they had a certain amount of time--usually a week--to get it clean.  After that, the room became my territory and I was going to clean it, which they probably wouldn’t like because I would just take whatever was laying around and haul it to the burn pile.  Side note...you only have to do that once before they believe you.  

I did learn after a time or two that “clean your room” wasn’t specific enough and had to modify that to “put your clothes away, make the bed, and sweep the floor.”

 

Princess asked me one time why I set the time frame.  That’s a two-parter.  The first part goes back to the goal setting thing we have all heard or read or seen somewhere.  If you want to accomplish a task you have to be specific and set a timeline.  You can’t just say “go clean your room.”  There is nothing definite there and leaves kids the option of saying “I’ll get to it.”  

The second part is about letting the child have some sense of control.  If I were to say “You are cleaning your room today” and then stand in the doorway harping on them while they do it, that only makes me the bad guy.  By giving them a task but leaving the timeline to them, they have a feeling that they still have some control because they can choose when to do it...or not do it at all, in which case they suffer the consequence of Mom cleaning it and burning stuff.

I often approached other household chores along the same lines.  I tried to avoid giving them a list of chores to do (I wasn’t always successful there) and instead would give them two choices.  Do you want to fold clothes or sweep the kitchen?  Do you want to put dishes away or dust the living room?  Again, it provided them a sense of control, and if I took the chore they didn’t choose it cut the cleaning time in half.

My mom’s big trick for getting us to weed her garden--and she had a HUGE garden--was to hand each of us a paper grocery bag and say that whoever could fill it with weeds first got a prize….candy, or whatever.  The caveat here is that the children need to know the difference between a carrot and a weed before they start!

The first “chore” any child is assigned is to pick up their toys, and it goes from there to more advanced tasks.  Folding towels is a good next step because, really, you can’t screw that up, and it provides a sense of accomplishment.  

I read in a parenting magazine somewhere that when kids are in the toddler/preschooler age and want to “help” with chores...LET THEM!  Are they going to do it perfectly as you or I would?  No, but they think it’s fun and as parents we have the opportunity to guide and teach them.  Then, by the time they are old enough to realize this is work...it’s too late.  Now they are experts at it and have to keep doing it.  HA!

When I was a teenager and my job was to “clean the kitchen,” and I hated it.  I put it off until the L-A-S-T possible minute before Mom and Dad came in from milking...and then only did a half-ass job on it which put me in the doghouse.  So I created a game out of it for myself.  I broke it down into smaller tasks such as empty the dishwasher, load the dishwasher, and wipe down the counters, etc., and write that down on a piece of paper.  Beside each task, I would write down an estimate of the time it would take me to do each thing.  I timed myself...no lie, I used a stopwatch and everything...and wrote down the actual time and see if I was close to the estimate.  

When I was telling one of my mom’s friends about this, she gave me The Mom Look and told me I’d get it all done faster if I just DID it instead of all the writing down.  True statement, but what a buzz kill!

Whatever we choose as our approach to parenting, all we really want at the end of the day is that our children turn out to be amazing adults.  In my world...mission accomplished!