4 ways to find more time for marriage with kids in the way

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Post written by Corey Allan

It’s late in the afternoon and the work to do list continues to pile up. Emails are left unanswered. The new message light is still blinking on your phone. It’s endless.

You get home after picking up the kids in time for a quick dinner, unless it’s take out, again. You spend a little bit of time talking as a family, maybe. Unless there’s a school activity, sports practice, homework, meeting, or something else scheduled.

You collapse into bed maybe hours after your spouse, and wake up to do it all over again.

If you have kids living under your roof, I know you’ve been there.

Today’s family is under a tremendous amount of strain. So is marriage. With all the things vying for our attention, it’s easy to have the important slip through the cracks in order to address the immediate.

Many marriages suffer due to this strain. It’s hard to find time for each other in amongst the schedules and routines of life.

Whether you are lost when it comes to finding even a minute together with your spouse or you are looking for a bit of a spark to take the marriage to another level, here’s a few ideas to incorporate.

1. Create a schedule.

Life runs on schedules already, so why not use a bit of this in marriage. Plan weekly dates. Schedule in rendezvous during the week. You may think this will kill the passion and spontaneity… really? You mean that you’ve never spent any time thinking through how you’d like an encounter or date to unfold? By having something scheduled, you create room for anticipation.

2. Tell your kids your marriage is important.

Strictly speaking, your kids belong to you, it’s not the other way around. Inform your kids, better yet show your kids that your marriage is important. Go on regular dates. If your family is like mine, your kids are done eating quickly in order to go play, spend time at the table with your spouse after they’re done. Sure you conversations will be interrupted, but it’s a great way to connect.

3. Utilize babysitters.

If you’re lucky enough to have family close by, let the kids have a little family time while you and your spouse go out. The beauty of this option – the kids get someone new to play and interact with, while you get a break together. It’s amazing to me the number of couples I’ve met that have not had their kids stay over night with family members or friends. Not only do you and your spouse benefit from this time, your kids do as well. They experience an expanded range of people who love and care for them. This can set a foundation for greater self-confidence and growth as they develop.

4. Create secret signals or code words.

It’s difficult to have conversations that may lead to deeper, more intimate connections when you are interrupted every five minutes by one kid tattling on the other or needing something from you for their homework or wardrobe. This can be overcome by creating another language or codes to use with each other. This language or code should be based on whatever you would be saying to each other if given the opportunity. If this type of language is not part of your normal dialogue, then it would need to be created all together. It could be as simple as lighting a candle that is centrally located in the home as a signal one of the parties is interested in an encounter. Whether the encounter is sexual or emotional is up to you. Or it could be as complex as learning a second language. How cool would it be to woo your spouse in another language? And if your kids begin to understand the language, they would only discover more about the love and desire you have for your spouse. There are far worse things they probably already know about you.

Kids in the home present many obstacles to passion in marriage, but they aren’t the only reason passion wanes. By overcoming the hurdles of kids, you are faced with what else may be going on in the marriage. The kids can provide a buffer for a stale marriage. If that’s the case, more work will need to be done individually and relationally to address the other concerns.

Marriage is effort. But the things in life that require effort have more value.

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Values Over Valuables

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Post written by Home and Family columnist Beth LaMie.

Which do you think people value more: a financial or non-financial inheritance?

Or, to put it another way, if you lost a loved one, what legacy would you want to have from them?

The statistics may surprise you. A few years ago, Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America conducted a survey of over 2600 baby boomers and elders.

According to the survey, participants felt a non-financial legacy was 10 times more important than money and other assets. Think about that; the response overwhelmingly favored a personal heritage over worldly goods, values over valuables.

77% of boomers and elders personally felt values and life experiences were very important parts of an inheritance. How exciting to realize that virtually every single person has the ability to leave a meaningful heritage for their loved ones!

Which types of values are the most important to leave as your legacy?

They include your personal values, ethics, religion, memories, heritage, and family stories. Not coincidentally, these values are all elements of an Ethical Will.

While an Ethical Will is non-legal and non-financial, to your family it is priceless.

Leaving a legacy your family will treasure can be as simple as writing them a love letter or capturing your words in an audio or video recording. Whatever you decide to do, here are some of the topics you can include:

Your History – Past and Present

Remember all the great stories you used to hear when you were a kid? Some of them might have been fantasies, like bedtime stories, but many of them were probably true. For me, the best stories came from favorite family members and friends. I recall everyone sitting around the kitchen table while Grandpa talked about farming, or Uncle Morris told a tall tale about raising pigs. I was fascinated, hanging on their every word. Those are among the stories I want to pass down to my young grandchildren and even to future generations.

Have you started a genealogy or family tree? I love to visualize a bare oak tree with the roots exposed. That forms the heritage and structure of a family, which includes all the dates, places, and names. Now consider all your family stories – those are what flesh out the tree, including the leaves and blossoms that make it interesting. If your family is like mine, those stories flesh out all the fruits and nuts of a family, too. They are the quirky, personal stories that everyone loves to hear.

Life Lessons and Achievements

Think about your own life. Everyone experiences and responds differently to life lessons. That is why they are such an important element of your Ethical Will. What have you learned during your life, when, and from whom? Your life lessons often shape who you are and who you become.

What have been your proudest accomplishments and why? What can your descendants learn from your successes and missteps? Which achievements by your family have made you proud? How does having confidence in yourself lead you to more successes?

Think about the wisdom you can bequeath to your family. Flesh out your advice with stories and examples. What advice do you want your friends and family to remember? How can you help them in some way?

Personal Values and Beliefs

Your personal values are unique to you, and they may vary from time to time. Every person responds differently to the influences in their lives and what life dishes out to them. Examining your own personal values allows you to figure out not only who you are, but who you want to become.

Your values are determined by your heart, your family, your friends, your religion, and your community. They may be as ingrained in you as DNA. Consider which personal values and beliefs you want to include in your Ethical Will.

Hopes for the Future

Voice your hopes for the future, for you, your family, your community, and your world. Which hopes and dreams are most important to you for your vision of the future? What do you look forward to sharing with those you love?

As you start working on your Legacy of Love, relish the thought that your values are more important than any valuables you may leave behind.

To whom do you plan to write your first Ethical Will?

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5 Steps to Maximize Summer

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Post written by mom and parenting columnist Susan Heid of The Confident Mom.

The summer months are ripe with opportunity to help your kids grow in positive ways – a chance to enjoy a change of pace from the busy school year.

You have an incredible opportunity just in front of you to focus on different interests or activities that you don’t have as much time for during the rest of the year, that is….if you take the opportunity.

Here are a few tips that I know will help you get summer off to a great start!

1. Create a Daily Schedule

“To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.” Henry David Thoreau

With the less structured days of summer it can be very easy to let things slide and before you know it it’s noon and the kids are still running around in their pajamas having a Nerf gun war (not that that isn’t a good thing – sometime!).

A Daily Schedule will help you and your kids stay on track.  You’ll be able to take control of how you spend your time from one hour to the next or at least in segments of the day – like before lunch, after lunch, pre-dinner, and after dinner.

You do not have to have a schedule broken down minute by minute, but by outlining your day and letting everyone know what the expectation is, you will have more time to enjoy activities rather than nagging at everyone to brush their teeth.

You could set up pre-lunch time for in home/yard activities, then perhaps an after lunch segment for activities you go out to do, like the park or pool.  Come home and have a quiet time just before dinner and then also have an after dinner segment.  Also makes sure you include self-care tasks, like brushing teeth, showers/baths, making beds, etc.

2. Establish Summer House Rules/Expectations

This falls in closely to the daily schedule and will create less stress for moms if you address a lot of power struggle issues ahead of time!

At the beginning of summer have a family meeting where you can discuss and decide on bedtimes, expected chores and time to be completed, rules for staying home alone (if that applies), rules for around the neighborhood, limits on TV and computer time and what time kids need to have morning tasks completed, like brushing teeth and breakfast.

By discussing these in advance and even creating a master list of the rules and expectations there is no question about what is expected. If you like, create a poster board with some of these and place it in a location everyone can access.

3. Summer Learning

Think about how you would like to see your kids develop during the summer. Keep  in mind – if you aim for nothing, it’s likely you’ll hit it, that is what can happen if you do not set some goals with your kids. Discuss with each of your children some things they might be interested in learning over the summer.

It may be a sport, maybe they need to brush up on their writing skills or learn a life skill like cooking. Allow them to come up with some ideas and then you can also add in one tasks that may not be one they would ever list, but you know they need to spend a little time on – like math facts or reading.

Then try to make the learning fun.

If cooking is one of the activities, allow a “Kids in the Kitchen Night” where you can supervise but allow your child(ren) to come up with a menu and prepare dinner for everyone. They will not only be learning a life skill but will also be using reading and math skills by following a recipe!

If developing their writing skills is on the agenda, find a friend or family member that would be willing to write letters back and forth to your child. Be creative with the ways you can make learning fun.

4. Meal Planning

Research easy and nutritious summer meals now!

Look for recipes that require little preparation or using your oven. Pick about a dozen and rotate them making planning easy on you. Don’t be afraid to get some help (see prior topic with “Kids in the Kitchen Night”).

I love summer for the fact that my husband loves to barbeque, which makes my job much easier! I normally will double whatever he is barbequing so that I can use the meat in other dishes throughout the week.

Quesadillas with steak and a salad makes for a quick summer dinner – as does using leftover barbecued chicken in salads and other recipes.

Set a day each week to plan your meals and make your grocery list. Even with less “structured” activities during summer I find that it can be even easier to fall into a pattern of getting take-out or readymade items because we fail to plan. That will increase your family budget and create stress for you!

5. Get Creative

Encourage creativity and imagination in your children.  There are many ways to create great family memories without breaking the bank, it just takes being intentional.

Get outdoors: make sure you take advantage of state or national parks in your area –  June 21st is FREE admission day at more than 100 National Parks – take advantage of that! Check out books the library on local hikes in your area, pack a lunch and take off for the day, you never know what you will discover. I love going on picnics – but I used to hate preparing it all at the last minute. Now I keep a basket or cooler easily accessible and ready to go for last minute outings. The basket gets stocked when we return with the items we need, like plates, utensils, cups, napkins, bug spray, and tablecloth. That way I am excited to go instead of thinking I have to get everything ready.

Volunteer: Find ways in your local community to volunteer as a family. This is a memorable way to teach your kids the importance of giving to others and create habits that will hopefully last a lifetime. Brainstorm as a family how you might serve others and areas that interest you – children, church programs or senior citizens.

Create a play group: Starting a summertime play group where moms with similar age kids take turns planning activities and supervising one another’s kids is a great way to give each other a little ‘child-free’ time! Make a list of friends who might be interested and send out an email. Consider hosting a planning meeting where you can create a schedule and allow moms to sign up. This just might be what saves your summer as a mom – getting some uninterrupted time to revive!

If you are looking for some fun ideas to keep your kids busy this summer, check out my 2011 Summer Survival Calendar -  a life-saver for busy moms with 90 ways to beat the heat and blast boredom. Each day features at least one suggested activity, as well as click-able links to kid-friendly recipes, crafts, or special discounted activities; from paper airplanes to homemade ice cream in a coffee can, dollar movies to dandelion painting, you’ll have a summer full of family fun for only $7.

What tips do you have to maximize summer?

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Getting Married? Becoming Parents? Going Through Transitions

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Post written by premarital columnist Susanne Alexander of Marriage Transformation.

Transition. What do you think of when you hear that word?

It means “change” of course. But it applies to the big shifts in your life, such as becoming engaged, married, or parents.

These major transitions usually trigger an array of feelings, such as joy, grief, and anxiety. But sometimes our friends, relatives, and the media tell us we should be feeling only the happiness. Then, unfortunately, relationship-undermining doubts can arise.

Sheryl Paul, one of my collaborators in creating All-in-One Marriage Prep: 75 Experts Share Tips and Wisdom to Help You Get Ready Now, and an expert in relationship transitions says, “The problem isn’t the feelings; it’s our interpretation of the feelings. For example, we know it’s normal to feel anxious about graduating from college or starting a new job, but culturally we don’t know that it’s normal to feel scared about getting married. We put so much pressure on engaged couples to feel joyous, that we don’t leave any room for the more difficult feelings to surface.”

One of the values in marriage preparation education lies in its ability to help couples talk about this significant transition and build their confidence with new knowledge and skills. Sheryl says the couple can “discuss the grief about letting go of being single, the fear of making a lifelong commitment, and the normal and healthy questions about love in a long-term relationship.” (Paul offers an excellent Conscious Weddings eCourse: “From Anxiety to Serenity”)

What about the transition into marriage?

If the couple hasn’t dealt with their anxiety, and they go into the marriage with it unexpressed or addressed, how can this affect the stability of the marriage?

Post-wedding depression can be common, says Paul, and sadly more affairs can result, partially because couples question whether they made a mistake.

Addressing the normalcy of the feelings related to such a big transition before marrying is good divorce prevention. Paul says, “It’s quite tragic that people end perfectly good marriages simply because they don’t understand that it’s normal to feel anxious, scared, confused, and sad around the transition.”

For couples who deal with the emotions and go confidently into marriage, and who are successful in establishing their marriage on a firm foundation, becoming parents can be the next major transition. Couples who are discussing whether to have a child can often experience concerns about the permanence of such a step, and it can cause questioning about the quality of their marriage. Conversations with other couples who went through this transition, or with a coach or counselor, can be beneficial. Parenting training courses can also help build knowledge, skills, and confidence.

Once parenthood occurs, then marriage strengthening steps such as regular dates, an occasional workshop, and time with other married parents can provide support in reducing anxiety.

Marriage is a constantly shifting experience, and couples benefit from time alone together and help from others. A strong marriage is a primary gift couples give their children.

When we experience any major change, especially transitioning to marriage or parenthood, we can feel as if our life is somewhat out of our control. Discerning the emotions that are happening, sharing them with appropriate people, and understanding and accepting them, all allow us to move forward with confidence.

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Bucket Lists for Your Family

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Post written by Home and Family columnist Beth LaMie.

You’ve probably seen or heard about the recent Rob Reiner movie called The Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. In case you haven’t, take a moment to check out its trailer on You Tube here.

The premise of the movie is that two older gentlemen each have terminal cancer. While in the hospital, Morgan Freeman’s character recalled a class assignment from a college professor to make a list of all the things they wanted to do in their lives before they died, i.e., kick the bucket.

Jack Nicholson’s character, a wealthy but irascible old man, was intrigued by the list Morgan started. They decided to take off together on the vacation of a lifetime to drive racecars, go skydiving, and see all the things in the world they had missed. Of course, by the end of the movie, they each acknowledged the importance of family over everything else.

Since seeing the movie when it first came out, I think of that list each time I lose a friend or family member. Did they accomplish their goals? I’m reminded of how important it is to make the most of every single day. We never know how much time we will have on earth. So how do we keep our lives in perspective?

Create a Bucket List for yourself or your family. It can help you prioritize all your hopes, dreams, and plans for the future. You can also include some of the lovely inspirational messages, such as: Stop to smell the roses;  Don’t count your days, make your days count; Miracles happen to those who believe in them; Never settle for anything less than your best; Count your blessings, not your troubles; Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Start making your Bucket List today—you don’t need to wait until you are dying. You can easily include both long-term and short-term goals. You’ll discover things to do with your individual family, your larger family entity, your spouse, and even by yourself. Discussing your list with your family and friends allows everyone to not only participate in the planning aspects, but also to share in the satisfaction of their accomplishment.

Think about what experiences you want to share with your family. If you’ve always dreamed of taking them to Alaska, the Grand Canyon, or Disney World, put it on your list. When goals are written down, they are much more likely to happen than if they remain a nebulous idea. Too often, people talk about wanting to do something “one of these days”, but by not setting specific goals, those dreams just fade away.

Travel adventures are a wonderful way to keep your family connected at any age, but they don’t need to become elaborate affairs. A night camping out in the backyard with a pup tent and roasting marshmallows over an open fire can create vivid memories for young children that will last a lifetime. Spending an hour in the backyard watching the stars with a loved one is another delightful way to end a day.

When you write your Bucket List, sprinkle in a variety of goals that can be more easily achieved, such as a walk in the woods, a trip to the zoo, flying a kite, taking a family bike trip, building a birdhouse together, or reading a favorite book. Doing so will establish family traditions that can be repeated many times and built upon each year.

As a Personal Historian, I encourage you to preserve all your precious memories in some way. Talking about them is always great, but you can keep them more permanently by recording them in crayon drawings, in photographs, on an audio recorder or a camcorder, in a scrapbook, or in a lovely memory box with souvenirs of your activities.

Another idea to add to your Bucket List is to write your Ethical Will and update it on a regular basis, say every five years, or after milestone events. An ethical will is a love letter or non-legal legacy to your family, where you share your personal values, your heritage and family stories, the life lessons you’ve learned, advice to share, and your hopes for the future.

Regardless of how elaborate your Bucket List becomes, make the most of every day. Someday, when you may know your days are numbered, you don’t want to say you wish you had done something. Do it now, before it’s too late.

Do you have a Bucket List? If so, what types of items does it contain? I’d love to hear about your experiences.

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Are you a cool parent?

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I haven’t written on parenting in a while … the reason is simple, I believe when you focus on your marriage first – your kids reap the benefit.

The greatest thing you can do for your kids is learn to focus on yourself.

Let me say that again, the greatest thing you can do for your kids is learn to focus on yourself.

Who would you say is in charge in most families?

Is it the parents or the kids?

In America, the answer is the latter. Take a look around at the cars beside you as you drive down the road. The stickers plastered on the back window and bumpers tell the tale of child focus as the latest status symbol in America. We’re broadcasting our Trophy Kids, the same way we broadcast our affluence by wearing labels with someone else’s name all over our clothes, jewelry, shoes, etc.

Think of the time spent running kids to and from one event to the next (some days I fell like that’s all I do). Our days are filled with events geared solely for the kids.  Family life in America has moved from “Children should be seen and not heard” to “No adult conversation possible.” And the kids know it too.

Who’s in charge? Who gets their way? What is the organizing force in family life – the life of the adults . . . or the kids?

Is it possible that too much focus can be on the kids? Absolutely!

And it’s this over-focus that is harmful to them, the family… and you.

Here’s something you may not know – the kids that function best in life – in relationships, education, careers – are the kids that were most free of child focus during their growing up years.

Child focus can be negative – the scapegoated kid who can do nothing right — or positive – the golden child who can do no wrong.

The results of either kind of child focus are a lifetime of struggle.

The kid left to find his/her own way [NOT absent affection and NOT neglected] is the one best prepared to deal directly with life.

I know you’ve been there. A couple of years ago, I’m walking down the isle of Target with my 3 and 1 1/2 year old. Now possibly this was set up because I was allowing them to walk rather than ride, but no matter.

As we progress through the isles, wouldn’t you know it that something caught my 3 year olds eye. I can’t remember what it was but it must have been pink and princessey. She made sure I saw it as well and then the negotiations commenced (it’s quite amazing that a 3 year old is such a good negotiator).

So here I am, battling it out in the court room of the isle at Target. And it’s starting to intensify.

“Honey, put that back, we’re not going to buy that toy.”

“But I need this daddy!”

“No honey, you don’t.”

And we’re off.

You know where this is heading. The tears soon follow (from her, not me, although there are times I wish I could) and the tantrum pressure cooker is warming up. I’m beginning to feel trapped.

Add to this pressure building inside myself, I’m a licensed family therapist, my skills are now on display for all of Target to see.

What the kids need at a moment like this is a parent who can keep his cool. A parent able to calm himself down allows a child to explore his or her full range of emotions without spiraling out of control.

What happens with many of the blow ups between parent and child is the result of parents who lose their cool.

When a parent reacts on the level of the child, it’s bound to go bad.

What do you do?

  1. Focus more on yourself. This is not at the cost of others, it’s FOR others. When you are at your best, you are able to give the best of yourself to others.
  2. Do what you need to calm down without taking it out on the kids. Start by taking several deep breaths. Get a drink of water. Walk a short distance from your child, or to another room and calm down. Not every situation needs to be addressed immediately.
    In fact, one of the great tools for misbehavior is the delayed consequence. This gives you time to calm down and think things through. You might even collaborate with a few friends about what would be an appropriate consequence for the given situation. Meanwhile, your child has the opportunity to think about what’s to come, thus increasing the weight of the bad choice. This works well with older kids and teenagers. Remember, you’re not raising a puppy and you don’t have to catch them in the act in order for an appropriate consequence to teach a valuable life lesson.
  3. Let the child handle more of their own problems. When a child comes to you needing help with their homework, what do you do? Do you do it for them? One of the main things growing up entails is struggle, and the struggle to grow up continues across our lifespan. Homework is supposed to be difficult. Learning to accomplish any task takes effort and work. The more a parent clears the path for the child, the more unprepared for the real world the child becomes. It’s important to be alongside them through their struggle, but as a support, not a snowplow.
  4. Let natural consequences teach the lessons. Give up the goal of being liked by your kids – parenting is not a popularity contest – it’s not for wimps – it’s a sacred charge to be in charge. Let the consequences do the screaming. They didn’t do their homework, let the low score teach the lesson. Meanwhile, you are an understanding and empathetic ear for them to talk to. You get to support them, not necessarily their choice.
(photo source)

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Winning the Chore War

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Post written by mom and parenting columnist Susan Heid of The Confident Mom.

A few weeks back you may have seen fatherhood columnist, Dean Mehrken’s post titled “Paying Kids For Chores?” It was a topic that brought a lot of discussion and also triggered this post.

I wanted to share with readers some practical steps to actually implementing a chore system in your home successfully.

Who wants to repeat yourself over and over again to get a child to do a task that you can do in 10 minutes? NOT ME!

It is a common complaint with all parents, but more so with moms. It can be more a chore to enforce a chore!

I can remember when I was a single mom, I spent a lot of my time doing just that, draining my energy and raising my frustration level (and my voice)! My kids were small and I would try system after system because they just didn’t do what they were supposed to do.

After beating my head against the wall multiple times realized I was going about it the wrong way. I have learned from my mistakes and love sharing steps to creating a system that will work in the homes of mom’s I work with.

It is not rocket science, but boy – it makes a big difference!

Assign appropriate tasks

Your first step is to come up with a few tasks that are age appropriate for your child.

Start early and keep it simple

If you have young children at home, 2-3 years, you are in the prime chore starting stage. Even our 15 month old has a chore – to give the dogs cookies!!

If you are passed this age range, don’t worry – there is still hope!

You can find ideas everywhere, but if you are stuck on this one, here is a resource on age appropriate chores that I offer in order to jumpstart thinking. Another awesome resource listing age appropriate life skills is “The Plan” by Merrilee Boyack. Both will be helpful as your children grow in age.

Do my children have daily/weekly household responsibilities?

It has worked well for our family to have both daily and weekly household responsibilities for the children. Daily chores are a great way to build consistency and routine into your child’s day and weekly chores allow more complicated or tasks that require more time to be incorporated. You are also teaching your child learn to budget their time, plan accordingly and understand that in life there is hardly a day off!

Something to keep in mind: in the beginning it is not about how well the job is done – but rather that the job is getting done and they are learning. The job will rarely been done the same way or to the same precision as you, so you have to let it go. You are building much more in your children by giving them your encouragement rather than criticism.

Discuss

After you have YOUR list of ideas for chores, sit your children down and discuss your ideas and also ask for their ideas. When we started doing this in our household it was amazing what ideas they actually came up with. We explained that they would be doing chores, but if they had other ideas of things that would help the family we would consider those ideas too.

They were able to choose from our list and make requests of certain jobs they might prefer. This did not mean they would only get those jobs – certainly not, but it gave them the opportunity to perhaps do a job that they enjoyed.

Now they know to speak up if there is a job they would like to do – they realize they will be assigned jobs, so why not offer to do those you would like to do?

This produces a much better success rate, cooperation and feeling of being included in the decision.

Set Expectations

After you have your list of ideas it is critical to get down to the nitty gritty of the what, when, and how.

Set the rules ahead of time so kids know what to expect.

You will have better results with compliance when you are specific in what is required of each task and when it is required to be completed.

If one of the chores is to clean that bathroom counter, make sure your child knows exactly what that consists of (using spray cleaner, a rag, wiping down areas, putting his dirty rag in the laundry room).

By giving clear expectations there is less room for confusion.

Set deadlines

Make sure you set the expectation for when chores need to be completed by. Set a time of day that chores are to be completed; in our home daily chores are to be completed by 5 PM. The only exception is if you have an activity that prevents you completing them in time and you have been given an exclusion in advance.

In our home weekly chores can be done at anytime, but inspection time is 5 PM Sunday – unless you have arranged inspection prior. So if a child cleans their bathroom on Saturday morning but forgets to ask for inspection and by Sunday night it is a mess, they do not pass.

Obviously this works for our family because our kids are older, if you have younger children, be more specific and help them plan. You want to teach them along the way – that is what we did in order to get to this point.

This may seem a little tough, but as your kids get older you will want to make sure you have some sort of system that will prevent excuses from piling up, which them makes it difficult for you to enforce consequences.

Our kids have learned to look at their day and determine if they need to ask for an exclusion ahead of time to avoid the consequence of not doing their chores on time.

It is their responsibility – not mine.

Are chores clearly posted?

After you have divvied up the tasks, post them where everyone can see them and can be referred to at any time. We have our list on our refrigerator divided with daily and weekly responsibilities, as well as the time they need to be completed.

Inspection

This is a big one and takes time from a parent. You have to be inspecting to make sure jobs are completed and done correctly. For us it works to have one person be in charge of chores. This way there is no confusion between what I may expect versus what my husband expects and we are both not trying to do the same job.

At 5 PM or shortly after, my husband goes through the list and checks all chores. If something is not done correctly a child may have a second chance to get it right, but if it is consistently a trouble area and it appears to us that they have just become lazy in their responsibility, they will not be given a second chance to complete it correctly.

Setting clear consequences

What activities does your child enjoy?  Perhaps playing with a friend, sports, or watching TV?

What items does your child have that they cherish and would hate to lose?  An IPOD, cell phone or video game?

These are all great options for consequences. If chores are not done by the set time you have determined – hand over the IPOD. You can determine if it is handed over until the chores are done, or for a set time period, say 12 hours or 24 hours? They could lose it for periods of time corresponding to how many chores they did not complete. There are endless ways to set this up – so be creative.

We have found it works really well in our house to hand out additional chores when a child has not completed their chores on time or correctly. We get a lot of extra things done around the house, which saves me time!

Consistent Enforcement

Here is where you play the BIGGEST role. You have to take the time and follow through consistently to help your child understand that this new set up is not going away. As with any parenting issue and kids consistency is where the buck stops. If you are not consistent you cannot blame your kids for not doing their chores.

If chores are to be done at 5 PM, it does not mean 5:01 PM. Nor does it mean that dad won’t be giving you a chore this time when you did not complete them in time.

How does your child know when you mean it and when you don’t?

It is extremely hard to be consistent, but it will pay off with huge results. When your child knows they cannot manipulate, negotiate or whine to change your mind the power struggle is off!

Do whatever you have to do in order to be consistent.

Grace

The definition for Grace on Dictionary.com: “favor shown in granting a delay or temporary immunity.”

I love that, “temporary immunity“. As with any process, but especially in raising children there is always Grace scattered throughout the journey. When you begin any new system try to offer grace up as an opportunity to teach effectively. We change chores in our home every 6 months, so there is always a ‘week of grace’ when that happens.

If someone forgets or is confused, they are given grace and the chance to get it right. If you see your child truly trying, then encourage them by offering grace instead of being the hard-nose.

Only you will know when it is the right time to “throw the grace card” as we often refer to it as, but your intuition will surely help in those situations.

Yes, consistency is huge, but being human is part of the equation too.

Life skills are learned through chores and helping with the daily tasks associated with running  your household.  By sharing in the load you are building teamwork and a ‘all for one, one for all‘ spirit.

If you would like to hear more on this topic I recently did a 15 minute audio blog sharing these ideas and more. It can be found here: The Confident Mom Audio Blog. Feel free to hop on over and listen or download it FREE from iTunes.

What system do you use in your home to encourage completion of chores?

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Ethical Wills – Love Letters to Your Family

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Post written by Home and Family columnist Beth LaMie.

An Ethical Will is a simple way to share what is important to you with your family and friends. In fact, it can be a legacy of love and a spiritual gift for your loved ones to remember you by. Many people think about writing an Ethical Will when they are nearing the end of their life. In reality, such wills should ideally be an ongoing practice.

Think about what you wish you knew about your parents, grandparents, and other ancestors. For example, why did they uproot their lives to emigrate from one country to another, such as the original Pilgrims; or from one area of a country to another, such as the pioneers who endured hardships to settle the West in the United States? What personal experiences had the greatest impact on their lives? Those are the types of things about yourself that you can share with your own descendants and friends.

If you knew ahead of time when your life was going to end, what words of wisdom and comfort would you want to leave for your family?

You may have a Last Will and Testament for the legal allocation of your accumulated possessions, as well as a Living Will with instructions for handling medical concerns, but an Ethical Will gives your family a better understanding of who you are, what is important to you, and what you hope to pass on to them.

Consider starting an Ethical Will as soon as possible, regardless of your age.

Update it regularly after, or in preparation for, major milestones, such as graduations, marriage and divorce, births and deaths, personal achievements and disasters. Reviewing each version can show how much you have changed and grown over the years.

One of the most rewarding writing workshops I’ve done was for a group of high school seniors at an inner city school in Dublin, Ireland.

When we talked about Personal Values, they readily opened up about what was important to them, how they had learned them, and from whom. Some students were normally quite reticent about sharing their thoughts or participating in classroom discussions; fortunately, this topic struck a chord with them and helped them open up.

There are no hard and fast rules for the content of an Ethical Will, but usually they consist of some or all of the following elements:

  1. Greetings
  2. Your History – Past & Present
  3. Personal Values
  4. Lessons from Life Experiences
  5. Hopes for the Future
  6. Final Thoughts

The specific format of your Ethical Will is insignificant compared to the priceless legacy you leave. Whether you choose to write it or record it electronically, you have several options.

  1. The oldest method, used for some 3500 years by the Jewish community, is to write it on paper; now it is easy to enter it into one of many word processors on a computer.
  2. Other options are to create an audio recording, perhaps reading one’s own Ethical Will aloud, or using a camcorder to capture not only the person’s voice, but their image as well.
  3. Artistic people may prefer to take a less traditional path to create an expression of who they are. They may enjoy painting, weaving, writing poetry, scrapbooking, photography, or a vast variety of other media.

Long-term storage is important to consider, regardless of the recording method used. For example:

  1. Electronic data storage is continually evolving. Media used years ago, such as floppy disks or 8-track tapes, have not only deteriorated, they cannot easily be heard now due to the rarity of equipment. Here is an interesting website that lists all the retro medias that
    have become obsolete, courtesy of the University At Buffalo Libraries.
  2. Photographs and papers can last over 100 years, depending on storage. Hard drives last 5-8 years at best. If you write or print your Ethical Will, make certain you use archival paper; in addition, store it in a safe place away from heat, light, and humidity.
  3. Keep a copy of your Ethical Will at home as a personal reminder of who you are and what you have accomplished. It can be uplifting on those days when you need a little lift.

When to share your Ethical Will with your family and friends is another consideration.

  1. Ideally, the sooner an Ethical Will is shared with loved ones, the better. Doing so can be an excellent opportunity to grow closer to the people who matter most. It can also establish a line of communication that might otherwise not be possible.
  2. Many people prefer to save their Ethical Will until after they have passed away. They may choose to have it read at their wake, funeral, or memorial service. In this case, it is especially important that the Ethical Will be given to a specific person who is charged with its dissemination at a designated time.
  3. Review your Ethical Will regularly, such as every five years. Think of it as a work in progress, rather than a one-time occurrence. It is interesting to see how your values and advice for others may have changed over the years.

There are many excellent sources for more details about writing your Ethical Will, including the Association of Personal Historians and Barry Baines, M.D..

In addition, we will discuss in a future column how to get started on your own Ethical Will.

Have you considered writing an Ethical Will? If so, what are your thoughts and concerns about them? We love to get you input and feedback!

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