On Vacation....

Hello Everyone!
I'm currently in Ireland....will have some great posts when I return...that is, on organizing, not of my tour in Ireland, that will be posted on my family blog.

Cheers!

How Do You Get Your Kids To Use These Skills?

Since I have posted my list of age appropriate skills, I've had many people ask me how I got my kids to use these skills for the benefit of those who live in my household.

Well.......A BIG STICK....no, seriously, I started when my children were young toddlers. Now I am reaping the benefits of having my children help carry the load of maintaining a clean, organized home. When my youngest daughter was almost two years old I attending a church class and the topic was, "Confessions of An Organized Housewife", by Deniece Schofield. (Don't hold me to this, I couldn't read my notes very well) The theme of this class was organizing your house chores so that you did your Spring cleaning all year round. This process has stayed with me all my 24 years of having my own home and family.

The idea behind this is a card catalogue system with each card having a chore written on it. Then the cards are organized by daily, weekly, monthly chores. As I used this system I was able to delegate these chores to meet the skills my child had at the time.
I have since abandoned the index card system and it's become incorporated in my daily chores for myself and my children. (My husband fills in the gaps or plays the role as the task master, Ha!)

Some of the benefits I've gained from this system are:
** My laundry is all done by Wednesday afternoon. My teenage children know the day that their laundry gets done and if they miss it, well, guess what they're doing Saturday? One daughter missed her day so often that she put as a number one item on her Christmas list, "an ample supply of socks". Uh mm, I wonder why she didn't list underwear too. Ha! She's getting better at getting her laundry sorted on time.
** I'm not knocking myself out every April doing my Spring cleaning.
** I never forget to do the things that aren't common, like defrosting my freezer. (Shouldn't the freezer have an ample supply of ice to keep things frozen?! I'll never get that one!)

My list could go on and on, but I know I've made my life much easier in the long run. It's never too late to start.