Meal Time

As we approach the last day of January tomorrow, I am remembering my plan to implement more responsibilities and goals for the new month.  While not perfect, most days they are getting their beds made, getting dressed and doing their Bible study before breakfast.  We seem to get a little slack on the weekends, and I have had weak days when I've allowed "one bowl of cereal, then you need to get dressed before you have more."  But I am happy to have gotten through a month of trying to make this a habit. 

We will plan on continuing what we have accomplished so far and I think the next area we are going to tackle is meal time.  We have established a plan for this in the past, but haven't stuck to it real well.  I think we will go back to the plan.  Each child has 2 main jobs for the week (table setter/clearer/meal prep helper/table washer/dish washer).  Three kids, two jobs each.  The 3 year old will get to be a helper to one of the older kids who will need to patiently train him.  We have a chart I made.  I am not good with the paper charts that have to be printed off.  They are great, I just forget to print them off and then they seem to fall down and I have all these papers - it just gets messy, and we quit.  So I have a large piece of cloth that I sewed cut pieces of laminating sheets.  I put the different job labels with pictures in the pockets.  Each kid has a certain colored clothes pin.  So whoever is the dishwasher for the week, will have that clothespin clipped to it.  Then there are little pockets sewn on the bottom to put the corresponding colored popsicle stick in.  The sticks are given out if they have done their job with a good attitude.  Sticks can be taken away for poor attitudes.  Each stick is worth 10 cents.  Once they have 10 sticks they tell me, and I write down on a pad of paper that they have earned a dollar.  This is just kept on paper until they have saved up for something and also appropriate amounts are given to savings and church.   I had troubles with allowance.  First of all getting money for not really doing much was hard for me, second of all I had a hard time always having it ready on pay day.  Now it just stays in the bank until they need to use it.  The plan was to make them save $10 before they were allowed to spend anything.  For some, that seemed like an impossible task.  We might give in and say $5.  That is still up for discussion with my husband.  Anyway, consistent meal time chores are starting Friday!  Back in business boys and girl :-)  This is so much easier said than done.  To break up peaceful play is so hard, but I need to stick to it consistently so they don't balk at me when I do ask them to help out!  Any prayers sent this way to help us become consistent in this would be greatly appreciated!  I am not entirely convinced that they need to be paid for these types of jobs.  I know I always hear kids should just know that this is part of being a family, to work and serve each other in this way.  I also want them to learn how to handle money, and to recognize that to get money requires work.  I don't know if I will ever come up with a perfect solution, but this is what we are currently doing.

Stay tuned, my next writing needs to be about the importance of work.  I've been reading about how so many problems with kids can be a result of them believing they are not needed.  They need to know that they were put on this earth serve and help others and that they are a needed member to the family.  This shouldn't be something we think they will just figure out someday.   Let's start today!