Chores, Jobs, Serving at Home (Family Rule Book part 4)
Family Rule Book . Parenting
I was so blessed with a very organized and efficient mom. She is the true master delegator. She knows what tasks can only be done by dad, herself, a hired worker, and/or an older child. As a parent, we have to not only care for our children, but also for a home, possessions, bills, and more. We have to be sure that in all our responsibility we don’t neglect the most important things. Our relationship with God, our spouse, our children, and yes, our friends, co-workers, and church. So, one way we can do it all and do it well, is by sharing the load.
Nothing makes a person feel valuable like giving them a job and showing them how important that job is. This is exactly what God did with Adam. As soon as Adam was created, God gave him a job. His job was to name the animals, and to care for them and the garden (land). Eve was created to do a job too. She was created to help Adam. She was created to be the support team, the cheer leader, champion, motivator, and so much more.
God created us to serve and work.
In our house, we actually love to work. Pretty much anyone who knows us, knows there is few jobs we won’t try. We don’t mind getting dirty, or sweating. In fact, you might say, we love it.
So, it isn’t hard for us to encourage our children to help and work. But, we are human, and sometimes we grumble and complain, and maybe we would rather do the job someone else is doing instead of the job we are assigned. Also, some jobs are not as fun, because as soon as you do it, it is undone. Like laundry, dishes, mopping, etc. But these jobs have to be done to create a clean, safe, happy, and peaceful home. In the middle of winter, we don’t love going out to care for the animals. But we do love our animals, so we must push ourselves to do these tasks, as well.
In our home we have certain jobs assigned to specific people daily and weekly. Some are big jobs and others are little, but assigning them makes sure they get done. Usually a couple times of year, I re-evaluate the job assignments, and update them. Sometimes, a member of our family will keep the same job for years, they may be the best suited for the task. An example of this is Lydia managed the laundry in our family for about five years. But, when she got married and moved out, no one really wanted to be in charge of the whole job, so we changed our laundry system. As our family changes, our chore system adapts too.
So, here is a look at our rule pages for chores, and a look at the chore charts we currently use.
I hope these tools are a blessing to your family. I will also make each page available to print.
In our house we post the job charts around the house, as reminders of who has what jobs. Children need lots of reminders and easily forget. Mom and dad too. So, the charts help us remember, it also helps us know whose jobs might need to be done by someone else. If a child is gone, sick, or unable to do their jobs, we encourage everyone else to just do them for the person who is unable that day. Because next time it might be you that needs help. We also encourage everyone to help at job time. Once you finish your job, you go and see if the youngest child needs any help, and work your way up the list to the oldest child.
Another important point to remember is your children have to be taught how to do a job correctly. You have to take the time every day to work on training them to do it the proper way. You can’t expect them to learn it in one lesson. Always expect excellent work, but only after you have carefully taught them what excellent work looks like.
Links to the family rule book and to our current chore charts.
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