not just chores but home economics

When thinking about chores and what to give to your children give All of them to your children, depending on height and level of maturity. I have educated my children at home since the beginning. I modeled to them how I expected the house to look for seven years with them helping me pick up their toys starting at age four. As soon as the oldest turned seven he started sweeping. Because he was allergic to dust my then five years old got to dust. Nine they made sure their rooms and school boxes where kept tidy. Age ten they started keeping the bathroom clean by eleven they kept the kitchen clean and by twelve they were cooking meals. Now they keep the entire house clean using a zone system. All I do is work, plan lessons, chauffeur and I am the ATM. Make a list of everything you do and everything that needs to be done and give it to them. It is their home economics course. I tell my boys all the time they need to learn to take care of themselves. No one wants to live with someone that doesn't know how to do that. 

Since the very beginning of me keeping my children home I have always said several mantras the main one being my job is to keep you safe keep you healthy and educate you on how to do it yourself. All I have to do is make sure that their basic needs are met I provide them a home I provide them with clothes I provide them with food. I make sure that they are healthy by making sure that they exercise they are mentally healthy by taking them to church and groups to be around their friends of whatever age they are. I make sure that I talk to them about their feelings and helping them to identify what they're feelings are so that they can be emotionally intelligent not just academically intelligent. A lot of people forget that children need to learn these things on how to regulate themselves and be disciplined in not only what they know but how they know it as well as how they feel. So when thinking about chores it's not a chore it's just something that they have to do in order to make sure that their house is clean to make sure that they stay healthy and safe. when I say I gave the children all of the chores I let them fail. I did absolutely nothing except for make sure that I was working and that they had food and that they had clothes and that we did not get evicted or anything in the house was horrifically ruined to the point of catastrophe. There is nothing wrong with having your children maintain the house give them all the chores that they are able to handle I'm not telling them to fix the stove or repair a door or anything like that at a very young age but at the age of 14 my son did help me replace a door in the bathroom at the age of 10 my son did help I have three boys so my middle son did help me in repairing the sink. But I didn't make them do it by themselves but everything else the sweeping the vacuuming the dusting that was all of them cleaning the windows all them. they look at me and they're like oh you do absolutely nothing and then you know what I did considering that I work for myself I stop doing that and I truly did nothing and then they saw that oh my goodness okay we're not getting as much food we can't go anywhere that we want to go we can't do the things that we were doing well mommy was working so while we're taking care of the house she is doing something to make sure that we can do all of those other things that we like to do. Children forget or they're not aware of all the things that parents do. And considering that I'm balancing the burden of all the things you know parenting working educating my children and then of course trying to take care of myself I wasn't doing the self-care I wasn't taking care of myself to the point where I was physically disabled for lack of a better word. So when you show your children that the house needs to be maintained in a certain order and you stop they noticed that all of a sudden oh we've got roaches we've got flies we've got XYZ type of critter vermin that's coming into the house that can ultimately make us sick because we're not keeping the house clean and tidy and in order. If I were to really stop doing the things and everything was to fall apart we wouldn't actually be doing the things that they really want to do we wouldn't be able to find the toys to be able to go out and do fun things at the beach or the park.

When I started having issues with my health and I was trying to explain to my children that I wasn't doing myself care but I was encouraging them to take care of themselves brushing their teeth washing their face taking a shower exercising and all that stuff I asked them have I been exercising have I been eating right what have I been doing for myself care and they literally told me nothing. I asked them to reflect on my actions and let me know how my health has been negatively impacted by me not taking care of myself and I asked them to think about all the time that I tell them to take care of themselves first I always try to model the good and the bad honestly not taking care of myself will simply because I was trying to make sure that they were well taken care of and I was doing all the things but that's the main reason why my blog and everything is centered around balancing the burden. I know it seems bad to call it a burden but honestly I mean it can be even if raising children and being a parent is an honest Joy it is a burden for me to have to work and not be able to actually enjoy the parenting part so when I say balancing the burden I'm not talking about the burden of parenting I'm talking about the burden of adulting working instead of enjoying those small moments more and more working instead of following my true passion of being a builder and an engineer but because I rather be home with my children instead of off traveling to different places building all these different projects it's a burden and a toll to make that sacrifice but it's one that I will always choose to make. So when it comes to dissing out chores I will always have to say give them all to your children teach them early how to balance self-care and responsibility to the family because at some point they're going to have families of their own no matter what those families may look like they're going to have to make sure that they balance taking care of themselves taking care of their home and taking care of their families. And I always hope that they take that extra step and take care of their communities outside the home. Being engaged in community activities is very important to me so that's also another thing that I have to balance and that in and of itself is a burden because I am an introvert and unfortunately when you're self-employed and networking is very important and I'm constantly engaged in conversations with people when I really would rather be at home reading a book. But when it comes to chores and home education don't think of it as a chore tell your children not to think of them is chores think of it as a home economics course and then since I'm self-employed I take it that step further with the family meetings and conduct them as business meetings and they are employees and they're allowance is their paycheck and we constantly discuss how the home could work smoother we tackle concerns and go over complaints that we have with one another to better improve upon everyone's happiness and well-being I talk about the budget how much work I need to do in order to make the money to meet the budget and all of the things that they would like to do. People get away from the fact that a family can be run like a business but that doesn't mean that it needs to be devoid of compassion nurturing and love.