Inspiring Work

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

The best way to inspire work is to work together. It's not very fun to work alone - we learn sooo much as we work together and bonds are forged.

"Family identity is built moment by moment amidst the talking and teasing, the singing and story-telling that often attend such work sessions. Daily repetition of tasks allow the words and actions that accompany each day's labor to gradually form our most basic beliefs."

"Unfortunately, when family members no longer cooperate to feed, clothe and care for one another, they tend to grow further apart."

"Children learn to care for others by doing work that helps them think about others"

"Learning to patiently and lovingly work out disagreements is a vital part of linking family members through family work."

-All quotes from SoF

After asking Bud to do something for me one day he asked, "Mom, why is it so important to you to have a clean house? Aren't we more important to you than a clean house?" Yes!!!! That is why I am having you clean the house. It's important to my kids to see the big picture. The house being clean is an important end, but the more important end is what we are establishing as we clean. So I've been trying to teach them about work.

I try to teach them this (from SoF):
1)Life creates need (things get dirty, people get hungry, etc) and calls upon us to help.
2)When a need calls to them, it is the right, moral and necessary choice to respond.

We've had family home evenings and devotionals about why we work, about the quotes above, and about the scriptures below.
During family home evening yesterday, after discussing D&C 58:26-28, I asked them, "Do you guys understand that work is about so much more than a clean house?" They all nodded their head thoughtfully. I hope they are starting to see the big picture.

Here's some great scriptures about it:
D&C 82:19
Matthew 25:31-40
Alma 34:28
D&C 58:26-28

When a Child isn't Working During "Family Work".

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

For a while, it seemed that whenever I expected everyone to work together to get something done - there would be a complainer that would sit around and ask why we had to do a particular thing right now, or this way, etc. OR the kids would get distracted and start playing and forget the task.

I knew I needed to figure out a way to help them learn to work even when they didn't feel like it, and to stay focused despite the many distractions around them. I don't mind it all if they play while they work. I think this is great - we're forging bonds and leaning that working can be fun. I do have to do something when they're only playing instead of working.

Playing while we work :-)

I decided that they needed some "work practice". Here's what I do when I see someone is not contributing:

1) Remind - I do this in different ways. Sometimes I just say their name (I've explained that this is one way I'll remind them to get back on task) or I say, "this is a reminder". Sometimes I'll praise a child that is working. If it's really a hard day for them, I'll give them a quick reminder of why we work.

2) If they continue to neglect the task, I tell them that they need some "work practice". For work practice they get to pick up 10 extra items from somewhere else in the house. If I catch them dawdling again during the family task (tattling is not allowed - it's only if I happen to see it - which is easy since we're all in the same room!) I add 10 more items. I keep track of how many items each child has earned during the task and then they go pick up that many items after we're finished with the family task.

At first, I had to keep tally marks by their names on a little paper on the fridge. After the first day, though, they learned to stay on task much better, so it's easy to keep track in my head when I do have them do "work practice" after a task.

A couple of warnings:
It's easy to focus on the negative when I am focused on catching them NOT working. I try to remember to praise them a lot when I do see them working and thank them for their contribution to the family. If a child is particularly difficult that day (this happened to me yesterday) - it can be tempting to spend time arguing with him/her. I try to remember that arguing causes us both to get off task. Instead, I'll just add more items for them to pick up or I check to see if they are "out of instructional control"". I was proud of myself for not loosing my temper, but remembering to follow through with the consequences instead.

This "work practice" (or 10 item pick-up) has worked really well for us.

Anyone else have any ideas about how to help your children stay on task?

Teaching the Kids to Work - Part 2 - How?

I read this quote this morning and I love it!

The observance of four simple things on the part of parents would in a generations or two turn our societies around in terms of their moral values.
They are simply these: Let parents and children (1)teach and learn goodness together, (2) work together, (3) read good books together, and (4) pray together

-Gordon B. Hinckley

So how do we learn to work together? I don't claim to have this down, so I would appreciate any comments on my posts with suggestions, but I do think I've learned a few things through trial and error as I've tried different ways to get the kids to work. (By the way, I think the experimenting in itself has been great - maybe some of the charts and reward systems I've tried have only served to motivate for a few weeks, but the kids learned to work in the process and that was what I was trying to accomplish in the first place! It seems to me that even when I repeatedly fail in my attempts, as long as I keep trying - the failures come less often and I see improvements over time. The trick is to not get discouraged and quit trying).

I suppose every family has to experiment with systems that work well for them, but I'll share in upcoming posts what has worked well for us and then I'll link them to this post. Here's what I plan to write about:
(If it's linked - then I've written a post on it, if it's not - then I'm still planning on getting to it.)

Why work?
Inspiring Work
**When a Child isn't Working during Family Work
**Following Directions
Meal Times
Laundry
Daily Jobs (we now have new list and new stewardships  here)
Weekly Jobs (on our new schedule we now do these during family work time)
Project Time  (we also now do this during family work time)
Our New Schedule)
Involving the Little Ones
Consistency
Kid of the Day and Making Time for Each Child
Reward Systems
The Ladder  (A reward system) and a nice addition from a friend's post.
**Consequences
The Cure for the Lazy Bug
Work and Respect

** I've learned a few things since writing these posts that have changed how I do this.  Here are my new thoughts on this:
Letting My Kids Make Mistakes
Consequence Ideas
To Spank or Not to Spank...
Motivating Children with Money? (The Right Motivators)
Without The Slightest Bit of Frustration

Our latest system:
Family Work
Principles I've Learned about Work and How it Looks at Our House (including our current schedule)

Also, we've incorporated these things into our schedule very gradually. We are able to do them all now (for the most part), but we had to start by focusing on doing one thing well at a time. If we were to try to do all of these things at once - there would have been some major resistance. Some people may have the mental strength and fortitude to persist with it anyway. I don't - so we had to get to where we are (and where we eventually want to be) slowly but steadily.

Please share anything that has worked well for you - and feel free to ask questions if something doesn't make sense.  I appreciate comments!

Happy Birthday Spice!

Spice is a girl of many talents!
Among them are:
ART:
Spice once said to me, "Mom, it's really weird, but I feel like I can't walk by a sharpened pencil and not pick it up to draw with it!"
She drew this picture of Little Miss shelling peas as a final project for her art class last spring.

Her oil pastels teacher was really impressed with this drawing of a lemon:

She spends most time drawing "cartoon" type pictures for her stories or of characters she makes up (like fairies, little girls, different animals, etc).

DESIGN:
She has asked me to teach her how to sew, but since I don't know too much about it myself, I've put it off. I did teach her a basic hand stitch once though, and she took off from there - designing clothes and accessories for her dolls. She makes them from old pants or shirts we were going to get rid of. Apparently old pant legs are just the right size for 18" doll dresses! Here's some of the outfits she has created (she made everything they're wearing):


She made the monkey shirt out of a sock. Notice the hand-stitched flower on the skirt :-)

She also designs jewelry:


WRITING:
She loves to write stories, funny sayings, poems, cards, and in her journal and her diary. Bud thinks her books sound like something you'd read from the library. She describes things so well that you can see them in your mind.
Here's one of her poems called "My Made-up Friend"

By the golden sunset where the rainbows end
There lies a person a very good friend.
She is a pleasher (pleasure)sight
and no she does not bite.
She has jewels galore
A billion or more!
She has hair that's the coler of gold
and she is very very bold
She has wings that are the coler of rainbow in the sun
and I'm glad to say she likes to have fun
She only comes when the sunset is up.
I never asked her what was her name.
Well, we were playing such a very fun game.
Her name might be Ashly or Mary or Glistery
I guess her name shall forever be a mistery.
She is a very good friend I should say.
I wish I could see her every day.

I love her all her poems and stories. When she asked me if she could have a notebook just so she could write her made-up poems and songs, I tried to contain the excitement in my voice as I said, casually, "Oh, sure."

She is also an avid reader. Some of her favorite books so far are: the Harry Potter series, A Little Princess, and the American Girl book series.

Yes, she is a girl of many talents, but the best thing about her is her kind, good, honest heart. Here are some examples:

Me: "Spice, could you please get Basinks dressed for me?"
Spice: "Come on, Basinks, let's go get you dressed."
Bazinks: "No! I don't want to get dressed! I want to stay in my jammies!"
Spice: "Let's get you dressed so we can fight bad guys! We have to hurry or they're going to get us!"
Bazinks, "Okay!!"
(She doesn't get these great ideas from me - I'm not nearly as creative.)

At dinner:
Bazinks: "I don't wike sawad! I'm not going to eat my sawad."
Spice: "Okay! It's sooo yummy, I'm going to eat it!" (reaches for his plate)
Bazinks: "No! I eat it!" (Laughing to get it before she does).

She helps a ton with Ray - getting him dressed, keeping him happy when I'm trying to get things done, making him laugh, walking around with him when he's fussy. He smiles whenever he sees her.

The other day she was in a grumpy mood and she made some snappy remarks to me and her sister. I told her to leave the kitchen (we were making cookies so she did not like this at all). She went to her room. She came out a little later and apologized to us. She said she knew she had a bad feeling in her heart and so she went to her room to read some scriptures so she could have the Spirit with her again. She felt peaceful and wanted to be better now. I wish I'd think to do that more often!

Here's some pics of her birthday:
She got rollerblades:

We took a couple of her friends to a bouncy place:






Her cake:

She is an amazing little girl. I thank Heavenly Father every day for the privilege I have of knowing her and of being her mom. I love you Spice!

Teaching the Kids to Work - Part 1 - Why?

I knew I wanted to raise hard working people, but I didn't quite grasp the importance until recently...

I had been feeling like I needed to have the kids work more, but I wasn't sure where to fit it in. There were so many things I wanted to teach them during the day, plus I have a household to run - and teaching the kids to work more takes TIME! (In fairness to them - they do work more than your average kid - they have more time to do so since they don't go to a school).

Then, I was talking to my friend, Lara, at the park. She told me that she and her family were doing a "work-camp" (You can read about it here) They basically work from 7 am until noon every day, with a break for smoothies in between. I thought, "If they can work for 5 hours - surely we can do more than we're doing!"

Then I had to decide: Do I want to spend more time working when there are SO many other things I want to teach my kids?

I set out to find the answer. What is it, exactly, that they learn from working? If it's just skills - I'm sure I could teach them those in a short amount of time, when they're a little older and more capable.

I was intrigued that one of the first things God told Adam after he ate of the fruit was to get to work. Why? Why not tell him to get studying about how to return to Him? Why fill up his time (and ours) with weeds and all sorts of things to do? Wouldn't it be great if we could just sit around and study great books and scriptures all day?

I asked my Sunday School class this question and asked them to help me think of traits that are developed in a society that works the minimal amount in order to play (ie. ours). Some traits mentioned were: flightiness, superficiality, the tendency to be swayed about, "ever-learning and never coming to a knowledge of the truth" (2 Timothy 3:7).

Then I asked them to help me think of traits that people who work hard have. They mentioned: Sturdiness of character, gratitude, appreciation for others' efforts (compassion), ability to value those things that matter... after a while I realized that every good character trait we develop - comes from working - from doing hard things.

That's when I realized - reading and studying good books inspires us to become good people and to seek for good things, but working is what makes us become good people who do good things - even when they're hard.

The two go hand in hand of course, but my kids (and I) are not going to BECOME great people if all we do is read about those people. We have to do the work - the hard things in life (especially when we don't feel like doing them) to become like those people.



I explained this to the kids after reading about Alma - how hard he worked and all the hardships he endured, but how much joy he had, and good he did, because of it. He was one well practiced in doing hard things.

This has very much changed my perspective on my work. Now when I go to clean the kitchen when I'm not feeling like it, I remind myself that I am not doing a temporal thing that will need to be done in a couple of hours anyway. I am building something eternal (me).

The kids have complained a little (okay - there has been a couple of fits) about the higher standard I have for the work they do, but I remind them that the more they don't feel like doing something, the more they are practicing doing hard things, and becoming the people they were meant to become.



*Just to clarify - what I mean by "work" is putting forth the effort to accomplish something. If we practice doing so in our housework - we will be better able to do so in any other are of our lives - school work, church work, occupation, etc.

Click here to see more on how to teach work.

Fall Fun

I just love fall! We let the kids stay up too late the other night because they were just having too much fun playing in the leaves. Bud said, "This is the best day EVER".

Then today we went to a pumpkin farm. I love them. We went to 3 last year. This year we'll probably just do one, but it was great.
On the way there, Spice was inspired to write a poem.

Leaves are falling down, down, down
It is pretty - it's no frown
My Birthday! My birthday is in the fall!
Birthday fun! Fun for all!
Leaves fall upon the ground
Making it a leafy crown
I like to rake a big huge pile
and jump in it, it makes me smile!
Fall is fun, very fun.
Plenty of fun for everyone!

Spice and Bud are almost done with the Harry Potter series - so a corn maze was the perfect place to play Harry Potter 4

Yes, those are straws their holding - wands.

Voldermort's trap:


They had to raise their hand when they found the pumpkin they wanted - then someone would come cut it for them:


They had a great time.







On the way home, Spice was inspired to write a second poem:

I am a pumpkin orange and round
Waiting for someone to get me off the ground
Here comes someone with a yellow bow!
I can't wait! No, no, no!
She's coming toward me yessireedoo
I really really can't wait! Can you?
She has picked me up yes she did,
now I'm in her house, My! It's really big!
What is she doing? Oh! She's carving me!
Look she gave me eyes now I can see!
Now she gave me a great big nose!
Mmm I think I can smell some rose!
Look she gave me a mouth a jagady one!
To scare everybody and make them run!
Do you know who that girl is do you know who?
She's the one who gave me a mouth to say BOOO!

Hermoine, Harry and Ginny (notice the scar on Harry's face)

The Task

There's nothing like finding a warm, cozy spot and settling down to read a book:

"The Task of Educators is to discover what an education is and then to invent the methods of interesting their students in it"- From "The Great Conversation" (an introduction to The Great Books).

I recently read this quote. I love it. I've been working hard this last year to try to figure out what an education is. I used to think it was having a great knowledge about math, language arts, music, art, history and science, but I don't think that's the crux of it anymore.

Anyone have any ideas?

Here's what I've come up with so far:


1. A good education builds a virtuous character - the most important thing I want to teach my kids is to be virtuous people. I want them to be hard-working, honest, courageous, truth-seeking individuals. If they are - they will learn those things of value for their lives and then use them for good!

2. A good educations provides an exposure to many beautiful, good, true things - so that when they encounter the counterfeit and false - they will know the difference.







I am learning to see that there is much beauty, goodness and truth in things like math, language, science, music, art, etc. I think my job as the mother is to delve into those subjects, find the inspirational within them, and then invite the kids to come and see.


I've learned through TJED that no one can force someone to else to get an education. I may be able to force them to learn something for a test, but it will leave them - it won't become part of them unless they choose it. All I can do is inspire them to do so.