A few weeks ago, I read on someone's blog about having "dish week" instead of dish night when it comes to your kids' chores. I immediately sang the hallelujah chorus, danced a little jig and decided that this one simple change would solve all the dish related problems in my house. (Did I read this on your blog? Will you comment and tell me? Cause I can't remember anything. Ever.)
And now, we have dish week at my house. In fact, we have three different categories of chores that the older children are assigned to one week at a time. They rotate on Sundays.
Guess what?!
It's working.
The Daring Dishwasher (I made that name up. Dorky? Absolutely. But fancy names make everything more exciting, don't they?) spends the week clearing the table after dinner, and unloading and loading the dishwasher anytime it needs to be done. As an added bonus, the dishwasher is also responsible for cleaning the bathrooms once sometime during the week.
The Magnificent Mover (I know. I deserve a Pulitzer for these names.) is responsible for moving trash into the basement, moving laundry from the hampers into the laundry room, and moving the basket that sits at the bottom of the stairs to collect toys up the stairs, with all toys then put away. The mover is also responsible for keeping the living room picked up, and they get to help plan and implement Family Home Evening.
And finally, The Henry Helper gets to help Henry accomplish all of his personal chores - help him put his laundry away, help him get dressed for bed, get his teeth brushed, that sort of thing. Additionally, the Henry Helper has to work with Henry to keep the playroom picked up and clean. AND, they get to be scripture and prayer specialist for the week, encouraging our family prayer and study time.
Did it make you tired to read all of that? I'm not tired. Cause, as noted above, my kids are doing all the housework now.
Ha! That was funny. If only I really could get the kids to do all the housework...
They are doing more though, for sure. And we are having far fewer arguments about who did what last time and who didn't help one single bit and who sat on the floor and cried the whole time while everyone else cleaned up and who won't help but keeps looking at the others with a funny look on his face.
Sam is washing dishes this week. The last time he unloaded the dishwasher, he came to me and said, "Mommy, I think I'm going to leave the silverware for you."
"Why are you going to do that?" I asked.
He scrunched his little eyebrows and said, "Well, if you think about it, you eat in this house too."
Ha. Ha HA!
"Sam," I said. "Who cooks all the meals that are eaten in this house?"
He nodded his head. "Hmmm. Guess I better go do the silverware, huh?"
Guess you better!
A gutsy little thing, yes. But a quick learner too.
So the new system is working and I'm a happier Mom because of it. Other systems already in place? My kids each have two towels of the same color, unique for each kid. They use their own towels, and in a perfect world, hang them back up when they're done. When they don't, it's easy for me to track down who keeps leaving wet and smelly towels in the bathroom. And, I wash fewer towels. And anything that helps keep laundry under control? I love it and want to marry it.
Speaking of laundry, I have a system there too. Mostly, this system involves stacking baskets of clean unfolded laundry on top of other baskets of clean unfolded laundry until there is a mountain of laundry taller than me in the corner of my dining room that will take me 4 hours to fold. (Not exaggerating. It really does take 4 hours.) When they are all folded, each kid gets their own basket, which they are responsible for taking upstairs and putting away. (Even Henry... with help, of course.) On a good day, the baskets make it upstairs and back down again and then sit blissfully empty for a few days. But most of the time, the kids get dressed out of their baskets in the living room for so long they are emptied just barely in time for me to load them up again. Meh. All systems have their flaws...What systems do you have at your house?
