Meal Time Clean-Up

This post is part of my thoughts on how to teach kids to work.

My friend Angela (one of the people whom I look up to a great deal and got me looking into home-schooling in the first place) (her site is awesome, by the way) told me that no one in her family was allowed to leave the kitchen or dining room after meals until they were clean. I liked this a lot so now we have the same rule in our family.

This was hard at first and we had to start slowly. I'll admit that some days I just let them leave without reminding them to stay because it was just easier to do it myself. We're past that now. They know to stay without any reminders and they work together until it gets done. It goes pretty fast these days.

Here's how we got there:

At first, I set out cards with kitchen jobs on them that had to be done after every meal (loading dishes; clearing the table and counters; wiping counters, table and chairs; sweeping the floor) and they would get to pick the job that they wanted to be responsible for the rest of the day (we would rotate who got to pick first).  When they were done with their job, they could leave.

This worked for starting out because they got accustomed to doing different jobs in the kitchen in an efficient manner.

However, since the ultimate aim for our family work isn't efficiency, but unity in purpose, bonding, cooperation, and practice in working hard and serving others - we do things a little differently now.

Now, everyone is expected to do whatever needs to be done until the kitchen is clean - and then we ALL leave.

When I first started doing it this way - it would sometimes happen that one or two (or all) kids would play in the kitchen (as they held a broom or a rag) until I finished cleaning it and then we would all leave. It really was too much work for me to focus on my work and to keep pestering them to do theirs. I realized that they needed more practice working! So here's what we do - when a child isn't working during family work time.

It has worked well. Since there are 5 (or 6 when Rock is home - it's nice if you have a husband who is willing to set an example) of us cleaning the work goes pretty fast and it's not such a burden to anyone anymore.

Of course, different things are expected of different ages. Bazinks usually wipes the chairs, washes the dishes (plays in the sink), sorts the silverware or sits on a stool and watches us work (I give him that option as long as he stays in the kitchen until it's done), the rest of the kids usually start out with their favorite thing (wiping the table or sweeping) and then ask me what else needs to be done (yes, it often happens that the table gets wiped before it gets cleared and then it needs to get wiped again, but I think they're starting to see that that's not the most efficient way to do things :-) )

Here's a list I put together to help us do things in order:

 (when we're all done with #1, we all do #2, etc)

1) Clear table and counters

    Unload dishwasher

2) Clean table, chairs and counters

     Pick up stuff from floor

3)  Sweep

     Load dishwasher

It took time to establish this habit, but I am sooo glad we did. With homeschooling and everything I just don't have time to do it all myself. The kids know they're needed.