After I posted my "letter to my family" yesterday, someone in one of my homeschool groups that I shared the link with gave me a compliment on it (thanks Erin!) and she asked, "one question-how did it work?" When I tried to answer her question, I, of course, ran on as I usually do. LOL I didn't want to take up space there with my long answer (as a lot of you know, I can write a book, and some say I need to LOL). So I moved my answer over here where anyone can choose to come and read it if they were interested, and if not, they don't have to be trying to scroll through my 'book' to get to info they might need.
So.....in answer to this question, here is what I started posting there, and then continued here:
Q. "One question-how did it work?"
A. It worked wonderful here! I wrote that letter at the beginning of this school year. I think it made my kids realize that, just because I'm Mom, it's NOT my job to continue cleaning up their messes and that it's not fair for me to stand in the kitchen preparing and cooking and then have to take care of the leftovers and the dishes. As I stated in the letter, I am a 'clean-as-I-cook' person, so nobody ever has to wipe down the stove from grease splatters or boil overs or anything like that, and any cutting boards or mixing bowls I use get washed while I wait for something to cook or boil. My husband, on the other hand, pulls a bar stool up to the stove and sits there while he cooks, grease flying, dripping stuff across my stove and counter, you get the picture. LOL So, one Sunday (he usually just cooks breakfast on Sundays, soooo, bacon, fried eggs, you get the jist) I made the kids get in there to clean up after HIM.....they were more than happy to clean up the kitchen after I'd cooked then, and they still comment almost every time they do that they'd rather clean up after me than their Dad. LOL
It does work, life may not be perfect but they have a better awareness of who and what MOM is, and they understand that being a part of a family means that we all have to carry our fair share in our home. I recently told them that a house is just a house, the people who live there are what makes it a home, and we all agree that we want our's to be peaceful and loving, and with this stuff in mind, they DO make an honest effort in helping each other out. I thought I'd fall out the first time I saw the two younger one's working together to clean the kitchen up, and I even asked why BOTH of them were cleaning it up. All I got was shrugged shoulders and they kept working. Like I said though, life isn't perfect, THEY aren't perfect, I'M not perfect, and we don't have the "Father Know's Best" household. Who does? We all keep learning, we all keep messing up.
But since that letter, and some other talks since then, it seems to have spilled over into other areas here....they are just nicer to each other, and to me. And they even offer to help other people, when they don't have anything to do here they sometimes (at least one of them does) go up the road to my Mom's house to ask if they can do anything for her. They EARN their allowance now, they don't just get money or stuff cause Mom and Dad feel sorry for them, and they don't even have a 'set allowance'. We told them that there is no limit to what they can earn around here. Of course, there is....LOL. But you know what I mean. We could set it at $10 for doing all of their assigned chores....and if they just do the basics that's about what they get. But if they do extra things without being told to do them, they can earn more. They know that their attitude has a lot to do with it, and they know that if they have to be TOLD to do the basics they won't even get the $10. One of them NEVER has to be told to do anything, and he takes on other jobs you don't even know he's doing until he comes and says "I cleaned the stall so Dad won't have to", or "I washed your car", or whatever. The other one almost always had to be told to do her basic chores, much less to do anything extra, and when she saw her allowance be handed to her brother because he not only did HIS, but picked up her slack too, she had a whole different attitude. He didn't know he was getting her allowance, and neither did she. I kept that little idea to myself until payday and it worked like a charm for them BOTH. He doesn't hesitate to do anything she hasn't done, and she knows she has to get it done NOW so HE doesn't do it. LOL He knows to give her due time to get her stuff done, that was an issue, I had to talk to him and tell him that he couldn't just run ahead of her and do it, that it doesn't work that way. Cause he tried that. LOL They know we pay attention to what they do, we don't just have a set price for certain chores and so on. If they have treated each other well this week, and done their chores and schoolwork and haven't been in trouble for anything serious (getting grounded kind of serious) and do extra stuff without being told, they can get $20-25 cash. HE usually makes that much, she usually gets her $10. LOL She isn't nearly as motivated on chores as he is, and she is such a socialite that she doesn't 'have time' for such trivial stuff you know. And sometimes she decides she doesn't 'need' anything this week, so she tries to be lazy and let HIM do her part. She found out it doesn't work that way either, not only does she lose her allowance but she is in trouble too then, for not doing HER part.
At any rate, I almost never see a dish or glass sitting anywhere, and each one does most of their own laundry now. The laundry was a hard one with our middle child....he'd let stuff pile up in his room until he'd yell "Mom, I don't have any clean pants!" and I simply said "wonder why?" and I'd go on about my business and he'd have to deal with it. The time before that he brought his basket to the laundry room, but he just left it there, no sorting or anything, so I left it there too. When he asked if his clothes were done, I said " you carried them in there, WHY didn't you go ahead and WASH them?" He said there were clothes in the washer. I'd washed some clothes. So I asked him why didn't he put them into the dryer and THEN wash his stuff? He just said "oh". And went and did it. I purposefully left things the way they were so he'd see. And he did. Now they know if they don't do their laundry, they won't have what they want to wear. I do help them out though, just as I expect them to help ME out. I will put their laundry in the dryer, and even get them out and fold them if they are not available to take care of it right then, to show them that I am willing to work alongside them in this thing if they are willing to work alongside ME.
I don't tolerate laziness anymore. There is no sense in it. My preacher said something in a sermon years ago that made my lightbulb go on....he said "we raise our kids to leave home", and I knew that he meant that we are training our children to live independently, so that when we are gone or they are out away from us, they will know what to do. Simple concept.....but as a young mother I never thought about it and the fact that, the more we DO for them, the more we teach them that it is ok to sit back and let others DO. It's so much easier sometimes to just do something ourselves, too, and we will, to make sure it's done right the first time, and so we don't cause a fuss, and so they can go off and 'be kids'. The thing is, if we don't tell them to do it, show them how to do it, and sometimes cause that fuss, they are going to go off and 'be kids' when they leave the nest, and then where's that gonna get them?
Although that letter was written to older kids, you can apply the same principles in it by sitting younger kids down (family meeting) and just adapt it for them, as well as adding to it or skipping what you don't need. I put off doing something like that because I just didn't have time to get my thoughts on paper. I am the type of person who communicates better in writing, when I try to talk to someone about something, maybe, for instance, when I make an important phone call and try to explain something, I forget what I need to say or meant to say, unless I write down my main points or questions first to have in front of me. I am that way with my family too, my oldest son has many letters from me that I've written him over the years. He was a handful at times, and we'd have a quarrel or he'd end up in big trouble and I'd sit down and write to him to let him know I loved him anyway, and to explain why he couldn't continue that particular behavior, and he'd understand that much better than just saying "because I said so", and fighting with him over it. I'd also write to him to let him know how proud I was of any accomplishments, and also when he'd be really disappointed over big things, like when his first girlfriend dumped him, or when his PaPa wouldn't trade his 4-wheeler in for a bigger one (big disappointment to an 10 year old) I had to let him know his PaPa loved him more than life itself and that was why he wouldn't get him something bigger and that bigger means bigger chance of injury. AND when he couldn't get the job he wanted, it was easier for me to explain that sometimes the answer is "No", whether we tell him 'no' or God tells him 'no', the reasons are the same. He's very impatient and wants what he wants NOW, no matter what it is, and he can be hard to deal with sometimes when he isn't the least bit open to hearing what you have to say to him, so sometimes a letter would do the trick for me. He usually always came out of things with a better attitude then, knowing the world wasn't against him but that we have to roll with the punches, walk around the mountain, and sometimes wait on the Lord.
I haven't written that many letters to the other two kids, I've always been able to really talk to my youngest son, we have similar personalities (although different enough to get along) and he is more open to listening to us. He's very easy to talk to and he usually takes advice and 'life lectures' to heart. He can get hurt easily, but he doesn't get mad easily, so he doesn't take on the attitude that he doesn't care or doesn't want to hear it when you have to deal with him or his issues. He takes your words to heart, and goes on. The youngest, on the other hand, can get angered easily, and she definately has an attitude at times, but she knows the oldest of our three is very similar to her, and that we have been there and done that, and bought the t-shirt, (poor Randy, had to be our guinea pig) so she doesn't get by with stuff like storming out when you try to talk to her, or sitting there trying her best to focus on something other than YOU when talking to her. Plus, I learned long ago that I have to let her be for a while, give her a cooling off period (as well as my own cooling off period), and THEN we deal with her and the issue. If it is a case of them being hurt or disappointed, they are both open to us and we are able to discuss things with them, or if it's accomplishments, we do something like tell them our regular Friday night dinner out is for THEM and we tell everyone, in front of them, about the accomplishment and they are proud of themselves then.
So, basically, my letter writing to my kids (as well as other family members) is my way of getting things across to them that I KNOW I'll mess up somewhere between my brain and my mouth!!
Somehow I turned this into a novel, sorry for that. I only meant to write a short book. LOL
And now.....I must get some work done on my homeschool portfolio today, so my parenting advice column must come to an end for today. LOL (I'm an expert you know.....NOT).
