Before I start in on some of the things that have made life a lot less stressful for our gang, I wanted to show you this sign that was hanging on the wall of the tile store that we visited this weekend.
Luckily The Man doesn't have a wife like this. I, however, do have a husband like this... and oh how I love him.
Some of our biggest fights, okay, pretty much all of our biggest fights have been over kids, chores, and
messes. Lazy, sloppy, messes that when you times it by six equals chaos, and overwhelming frustration on the parents.
How have we managed it?
We actually still struggle with it. They
are kids after all. But we've come a long way with it.
Our first problem was dirty dishes being left laying around the kitchen and dinning room. Who ate this? Who sat here? Who's dish is this? Always met with a chorus of "not me" and "not mine." Obviously somebody left it there and didn't clean up after themselves. Since no one was fessing up, yelling commenced to all of them. Which we found to be unfair. Those who were cleaning up after themselves were being yelled at because of one who wouldn't claim it.
Our solution?
Color dishes. Each child has an assigned color of dish. They each have two plates, two bowls, and two cups. There's a bowl of cereal left on the bar. Now we know who to call to take care of it. It took all the guess work out of it. And all of the excess yelling. Also, with them having only two of everything, it cuts back on the mountain of dishes that used to be created. If they run out of cups, or bowls, before the end of the day, they can simply wash one instead of pulling miscellaneous dishes out of the cupboard every half hour.
Clothes.
Who's socks are in the TV room? "Not mine." Sean is easy. But the girls... we've started labeling all clothes. One tick mark for Cas, two for Jay, three for Brynn, and so forth until you're down to Cali who has five tick marks on the tag of her clothes. This is helpful when we have multiple girls wearing the same size. And socks get labeled on the bottom so when they're left lying around, we know who to call for to pick them up. This also works for hand me downs amongst the girls. Just add a tick mark when it's passed down.
Messes.
Oh goodness where do I begin? No toys in the TV room. Period. No shoes by the door. Period. This may seem harsh, but for a family of six kids in five years of age, it has saved my sanity. Feel free to play in the bedrooms. Once toys come down to the TV room, they never seem to leave the room, even if the child who brought them in has. Shoes belong in the closet of your bedroom. Because you know they aren't just leaving one pair of shoes by the door (which would be six pairs of shoes), they would leave several. And that pile of shoes greeting me every time I walked in the door just had to go.
And to help with general everyday, there are eight of us in this house, messes we have our chore chart.
I'm hoping pinterest can help me come up with a way to make this nicer looking for my home, but for now having it on a dry erase board has been really good. We've had to tweak it a few times (for example, making sure that Jayme or Sean don't have laundry on a day that is designated for them to be with their mom. They run out of clothes and then we're scrambling to fit their laundry in on another day...). Six kids, six chores (counting double duty on bathrooms. The older girls are in charge of the bathroom they use downstairs, and the younger kids tackle the family bathroom that they use upstairs), and six days. Mom and Dad handle the chores on Sunday.
We found that just having the job chart wasn't enough. We ran into a lot of "I
did do it" when clearly, the chore was not complete. So to sway that I came up with these cards.
There's a card for every room/chore. They are laminated and hung on the wall of the room that it belongs to. I don't even apologize for them when we have visitors over. They all seem to understand. The "dishes" card hangs above the sink. Nothing was taken for granted, and every step was spelled out for them.
Now the conversation goes like this,
"Is your chore done?"
"Yes."
"Did you follow
everything on the card?"
"I'll go look at it again..."
This of course only works perfectly, well, rarely. But it's
a lot better than what it used to be. The kids know what is expected of them every day.
And Mom is a chore Nazi. I check it when I get home and they will be made to do it again, following the card this time. I like that it gives them a guide so I don't have to spend a lot of precious time standing over them while I have other things to attend to. Like dinner. Or reading homework with another child.
When they get in a prolonged slump and just don't seem to be able to remember to fully do their chore, or even start their chore, we have an extra chore jar. It has chores such as "clean up dog poop in backyard" or "vacuum both sets of stairs". Once they've had to draw and do an extra chore, they're usually pretty good about getting the regular stuff done without any groaning. For awhile.
We don't stand for groaning about chores at our house. It's disrespectful and shows bad attitude. Everyone has a part, just go do your part. Groaning gets extra chores.
On the flip side the kids know that we do a lot of fun family stuff too. They know that a request for "family night" is
never turned down, and is usually accompanied with cookies or brownies. We'll watch a family movie, or play cards or board games, or in warmer weather, play outside together. Family nights are requested by the kids at least twice a week, and we take them pretty seriously around our house. With lots of laughing, and a whole lot of bonding.
We are by no means perfect in any of these areas. But it's progress and the kids are learning to be a part of bigger pictures than just themselves.
Now if only I could figure out a way to get a handle on the bedrooms...
