My 5 little helpers....and thoughts on children doing chores

Training our children to help out around the house (ie, do chores) is a huge value to me. And by "doing chores" I mean knowing both how to physically do a chore well, and doing it with a cheerful attitude. We have personal chores and family chores in our home. Personal chores include getting dressed, putting pajamas away, making beds, brushing teeth, and brushing hair. Family chores are done to bless the family.

I have often pondered the best way to accomplish chore training, and have looked around me to see how other families train in this way. When I saw someone (with 15 children!) doing chores with all her children at the same time I thought, "that must be the way to do it". So I tried it that way and felt terribly guilty for the high level of frustration and impatience I felt. Then I tried to do chore training with just one child at a time. This was much easier on my patience and frustration levels, but I struggled with feeling that I *should* be able to have them all present to learn a specific chore and doing it individually meant that I would have to repeat myself 5 times.

As with many areas of parenting, I have come to the realization that there is no "right" way to do chore training, but just what works best for our family. I have only been a parent for 10 years, but already I have passed through many different stages, and my degree of patience has fluctuated alot depending on what stage we happen to be in. When I am potty training someone that requires all my patience, so I am not really good for lots of other chore training. When I am nursing a baby I am more physically tired and not able to handle lots of other things. I have learned to give myself grace in this area. And to keep praying about it, asking the Lord to fill up what I am lacking. And I am seeing that some of these things get a lot easier as our children get older!

So what does chore training look like in our family? Sometimes we all do chores together. And sometimes I train one child at a time. Sometimes we are really good and do them daily. Sometimes we play catch up on Saturday. Holidays have lent themselves really well to additional chore training, and this Thanksgiving was no exception. I had a talk with the children on Tuesday evening, explaining that Wed was our prep day for our Thanksgiving Feast (we hosted my husband's family) and work would be required from everyone. On Wed morning we woke up and I assigned jobs. We all worked together on cleaning and baking. It was really fun to work alongside my children! (Note: I am not currently nursing a baby or potty training anyone!!).

First, our resident indians A and L washed the stairwell wall with baby wipes. This is visible from our front door and was pretty covered with dirty fingerprints.

Two of the other children picked up toys while I began dusting and vacuuming. Our oldest son washed the downstairs toilet and wiped down the sink. Then daughter G and I began working on a new recipe we tried for cranberry relish. My father in law loves cranberries, so I was thrilled to find a new recipe to try for him that was easy enough for my kids to help with. G actually did this virtually by herself (recipe is: one bag of cranberries, one cup of sugar, one orange (we used a tangarine) and one cored apple. Blend together in blender or food processor and chill. That's it! Recipe courtesy of Rebecca on the Tapestry of Grace yahoo group I am part of).

Next we worked on the pies. We made a pumpkin pie.....

...........and a cranberry/raspberry pie that is to die for!!!! (I can say this because it's not original) :-)

On Thanksgiving morning we set the table with our fine china, and then daughter G made place cards using small apples (this idea is also not original, I got it from Country Living magazine - are you getting the realization that I am not very original??!)

I am so thankful for the opportunity to host Thanksgiving dinner at our house each year, and for the extra opportunity this is for our children to learn to serve their extended family.

I am still working on ways to adequately train our children in chores. My goal is for them to someday be able to do daily chores completely independent of me, and to do them WELL without reminding. I want my boys to know how to clean house and do their own laundry, and how to cook a meal without mom if they had to. Of course I want my daughter to know these things as well, but it comes a little more naturally for her. I would love to hear your thoughts on chore training. Please feel free to share what has worked well for your family!