From The Mud Puddle

I have never participated in Works For Me Wednesday, but have wanted to give it a try. Of course the one week that I do decide to give it great effort, is the very week that also is kind of a best of week where folks can recycle their old "works for me" posts. Well since I dont have one, I'll have to just start from scratch and call it my best...because it will be the one and only-and therefore my best.

I sort of scratched my head wondering what to post about. What exactly about my life "works for me". I could say that what works for me best are my two teenagers...but I'll try to go deeper than that.

But wait, what really has worked for me as a stay at home -homeschooling mother is that I did teach my kids early on to help around the house. It does sound quite basic, but it takes time to teach your kids how to wash dishes, clothes, vacuum and dust the way you want them to.

I remember it hitting me hard when I was walking around doing the housework all day while also teaching my two kids their lessons. After they were done with lessons they would go off and play. After they were done with lessons I still had supper to cook, clothes to put away and a bathroom to clean. I thought, "wait a minute-this is so basic, I have built in help RIGHT here that can help me if I train them right."

Slowly I started by pulling them aside and painstakingly teaching each one of them an extra job to do around the house. I also started putting their clothes in a basket in my bedroom (for them to put away each morning) It takes time to train them but this is key. It may take you twice the time for a couple of times how to do something, but eventually you have kids that actually know how to clean house the way you would.

After they learned all about cleaning house, I then taught them how to cook meals. Slowly I walked them through recipes that were simple, slowly building up to the more complicated ones. We are still working on building their menu abilities, but I can say with confidence that neither of my kids will every starve out of lack of kitchen skills. They also know how to comparison shop and the importance of coupons. If I am away when dinner needs to be started, I can call home and let my son or daughter know that they need to start something for us.

So now, I can assign jobs and we can get the housework done in one third the time it would have taken me to do it ALL alone. The time spent instructing them one on one now returns to me two fold. You know what that means folks? More time that can be spent on the computer blogging! You heard that right!

And we labeled all the cool lessons "Home Economics" to go along with their regular homeschool studies. They passed with flying colors!

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posted by Muddy at 12:14 AM