Thursday, October 22, 2009

Today We Tried Something New

I have been frustrated with our household lately. It seems like so many days go by where I run around like crazy, making meals, cleaning, laundry etc, and my children simply play all day everywhere, with no real guidance or interaction with me.
So I thought I would try instituting a new daily rule. No toys until after lunch. That every day, the mornings are to be devoted to helping mommy, getting dresses etc. School in our house happens after lunch as my older child is only five, and it takes us maybe 1/2 hour to work through some reading and number worksheets and whatnot. Timothy is not quite four, and is still learning letter recognition, so we work on that for 10 or 15 minutes after Nathan's time. Then, toys and play can happen.
I think this may work for three reasons. 1) I think it will force me to begin to include them more in housework--don't think that I never give my children chores to do, but so far it's been a more incidental thing, rather than a regular "do this every day at this time" kind of thing. 2) I think it will preserve the interest of the toys we have if they have a period of time each day that those toys are out of commission--entirely. 3) I also think it will help cut down on the messy house to have limited hours of toys, which will in turn cut down on my workload each day.
What do ya'll think??
This is the first major scheduling attempt of sorts I have tried to implement. And today, so far, it has worked!! This morning, when the no toys rule was still in effect, I was ironing, and my older boys and I were sitting together reciting mother goose rhymes. Maybe I will get really ambitious and start memorizing Scripture!
Let's see if it's still working a week from now.

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please be kind, folks:) Differences of opinion are fine, but let the love of Christ reign here...