Guest Blogger: Bhairvi Johnston

Pebble Mountain Organizing

Moving Mountains One Pebble at a Time

Delegation – A wonderful thing!  Often difficult for some but once accomplished, what a great option for freeing up some valuable time. Your own family is a great  resource for helping out around the house. By getting children on board, many daily household tasks can be completed without your participation.   The challenge comes at the beginning of the process when implementing this option.  We need to train others, develop patience and accept that the final result will or may vary from the results of our own efforts.

Delegating regular and age appropriate household tasks to family members can be the answer to a more balanced home environment.  By involving children early on, many can benefit. Yes, it’s true the towels may not be folded they way we like with all the corners matched up but if it get’s done well enough, it’s not so bad. In fact, by having young children complete this job, they feel helpful and good  about themselves because they are helping you, especially, if  you show them gratitude. You may be surprised to see their eagerness at first but then notice it’s gets boring for them after a while. It’s said that,  “routine creates habit” and this is an excellent habit. After some time, you’ll notice an improvement in those folded towels.

There are many other simple tasks around the house that can be delegated to others. Figure out what they are and who in your home can take on these new projects.  Take the extra time to teach the “chosen ones” what needs to completed, how to do it and how often the task needs to be done.  Depending on the age and task assigned, you may need to supervise the activity several times. You may even need to be in the room during the process if the kids are very young but still old enough to help out and participate in the family responsibilities.
Some of the duties may include emptying the dishwasher. One hint for younger kids is to put all the plastic dishes on the lower tray of the dishwasher and have these types of dishes permanently housed in a low cupboard. Other ideas include dusting, vacuuming, sweeping, watering plants, setting and clearing the table and making beds. All of these jobs have been performed by 3+ years of age.  For older children, the assignments could be different. If by chance, you are having trouble coming up with age appropriate tasks, remember the stories our parents told us about working in the barn or on the farm milking cows, fetching water, chopping wood and taking care of our young siblings all at the ripe age of two!!

Chores are an important part of teaching simple responsibility and respect for environment. Combining these lessons with reward is also something to consider. If your option for reward is allowance, then you can also begin lessons on the value of money. For younger kids, they concept of saving money is not too exciting.  It can become more interesting for them however, if the reward offers more immediate satisfaction. By taking the young ones to the dollar store once a week with their loonie, they will see the benefits of earning money and enjoying it’s rewards.

Finally, another good habit is to encourage a rule for children to put one game, project or activity away before pulling out a new one. Also, cleaning up at the end of the day is much easier this way.  A few minutes of clean up before the next play activity, lunch or bed will become their norm if you make it happen.