A Mom Shouldn’t Do It All Herself!!

I was working with a client yesterday organizing her home (we were working on her son’s room yesterday) and she shared with me that her kids do not help do anything in their home. She said her 12 year old son gets mad when she asked him to carry his dishes off the table. While I was there her 17 year old daughter called to tell her mom that she packed her a terrible lunch. This mother felt terrible. I said to her, “Let her pack her own lunch.” That was a new idea to her! What?!

This woman can not keep up with it all. She has a part time business out of her home and a problem with hoarding (which has other issues attached to that). This home is packed full of stuff. We were actually working on her son’s room so that he can get into it to sleep. He presently sleeps on the floor of his parents bedroom!
This situation just made me sad. This is something that just hasn’t happened. These parents have let it happen. She said her husband is the same way, he does not help in the home either. He just gets mad at her for it being such a mess all the time.

As bad as I feel for this woman, it really is her own fault. You have to start children young in learning that they are part of a family and as part of a family you all help do the chores. Doing everything for you children does not help them in the future. They will end up leaving your home and have no idea how to do anything themselves. They will expect whoever they end up with doing everything for them because their mom always did.

Children need responsibilities. It helps them to feel a sense of accomplishment. They may not always like it, but there will always be things in life we don’t like to do but we have to…thats a part of life they have to learn too.

I started my kids helping before they could read. This is the latest job board that we created to help in our house with 5 kids. (My oldest 3 are out of the house and they saw several different job boards as they grew up). This one was made before the triplets could read, (they are 7 now) hence the pictures on the magnets.

I let the kids each draw their own design with their names. I just used old business cards and turned them over. I got the magnets that you can peel and stick and used those with the business cards. Then I just got a magnetic board and hung it in our kitchen where it can be seen easily by all. It makes it very simple to change the jobs around each week. We began using the little round magnets to put by the jobs after they were completed. We don’t use those anymore…they just became cumbersome…but everything else works great. At the bottom of the job board is where I have the extra jobs that we created, but no one had them for the week. We rotate the jobs once a week.

Help your children by teaching them to help you!

Sandy Jenney
www.organizewithsandy.com