Thursday, December 30, 2010

Getting the Family to Work as a Team"

                One of the most challenging areas of child rearing is to get our children to help around the house.  Many people involved in education and helping children to become more responsible wonder how to accomplish this task.  If you think of your home as a business and everyone who lives in it as an employee you can begin to give out important jobs and tasks based on their individual abilities.  Just like in a business, you must create a mission statement far your family.  Identify what are your most important values and priorities.

A.      Family Meetings/Mission Statement
·         Establish monthly or regular meetings to involve everyone who has an opinion in the process. Discuss important events and needs.
·         Emphasis Team Work
·         Mission Statement: What are your values and priorities in your home?

B.      Rewards/Reinforcement
·         Star charts, beans in a jar, any measure or chart of success
·         Reward based on success or effort
·         Reinforcement: if someone does a good job, validate the work and effort

C.       Create a Calendar/Schedule for your Family
·         Write out a printed schedule for chores: involve your children in the process
·         Divide up the chores based on your families schedule and abilities

D.       Consequences
·         If you don’t divide up the chores, you will have less time to spend together
·         Less time to spend with children
·         Discuss non involvement and choices

E.        Divide up the Chores
·         Setting Table
·         Cleaning the Family Room
·         Bathing Siblings
·         Making lunches
The investment of time you take in teaching your children to be involved in the home and learn to clean, cook or just be responsible will pay off in many ways over the years.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Organizing Children

One of the hardest tasks is organizing children’s toys and personal belongings because they change with the seasons and there are so many different types of items. One of the other reasons is that many parents don’t like to take away the control of their children belongings or they want the child to be responsible for themselves. I would like to suggest that doing some of the organization with your child might be successful or doing it for them as a model could also be effective.
Here are some basic ideas for the major areas of chaos.

As closets get cluttered and messy try using
• Plastic bins
• Proper hangers
• Drawers and dividers
Toys:
• Plastics Containers
• Baskets
• Shelves
• Remember “Less is more”
Books and School Work
• Sort Books together by category, put them in a bookshelf that is not overcrowded
• Old school papers can be stored in cardboard boxes or plastic bins that are labeled clearly\
Memorabilia:
• Photo boxes
• Storage containers
Kitchen:
• Detailed shopping list on the computer
• Easy and quick planned meals
• Healthy snacks
Take the time out everyday to organize something in your house, make it a daily habit and maintain all your’ existing systems.