When eight people live together in a house, it often gets messy very quickly! Our home is especially susceptible to this on the weekends. It could be because we are busier and out of our routine or it could be because we don’t want to take the time to pick up after ourselves. Regardless of why, we sometimes need to have a “Reclaim the House” session, where we all work together as quickly as possible to get the house back under control.
Tonight, while we were “reclaiming”, I was hand washing all of the dishes that wouldn’t fit into the dishwasher, while my 6 year old daughter helped to dry them. She is normally my slow worker, the one who HATES anything that even resembles a chore. She usually finds a reason to delay working by saying she’s hungry right as soon as I announce that we need to get busy. This time was different though. This time, she was excited, because she was encouraged to work right alongside of mommy. I was excited because I had the privilege of encouraging her to be a harder worker by complementing her work. She totally ate it up! It was a way that I could fill her love tank and help her to enjoy being a hard worker all while bringing us closer.
That had me thinking about a recent quote that I read. I wish I could find it now, but it went something like this: “The more quality time you spend with your children while they’re young, the more they’ll want to be around you when they grow up”. It’s all about spending quality time.
Do you spend quality time with your children? I know I’m guilty of spending too much time in front of the computer while they’re off doing something else. I’m also guilty of sending them away to do a chore, while I’m off doing another chore. How much more valuable that time would be if we spent it working together. We could talk about anything important to them, laugh and make it into a fun game. They will remember their mother as someone who they like to be around. You will be someone who makes them feel special. They will grow up wanting to be around you! I understand that it’s not always possible to be right next to your children when you have them assigned to a job, but I do think that we can make a more conscious effort to do so.
In addition to cleaning together, here are some ideas of how we can spend more time with our children:
- Play a game .
- Read a book
- Do a puzzle
- Take them out for a meal one on one
- Go out for dessert
- Set aside so much time per day to talk (especially important with older children)
- Do a craft
- Cook dinner (rotate in a child to help you each day)
- Volunteer together outside of your home
- Let one child at a time go to the store with you
Erin says
I have 4 boys aged 9,7,3,1. We will often work on chores together, instead of dividing them up. We fold laundry together or clean bathrooms together. Even the little ones. They are delighted to crawl in the tub and help scrub the sides (I’ll sometimes go back and wipe with cleaner). But it gives us a good time to talk about how to work diligently and train the little guys how to complete a task.
I’ll often include one or two of our children in our dinner prep. They might help brown hamburger or cut potatoes for boiling. My 3 year old loves to help make toast for his siblings in the morning while I’m preparing breakfast for myself or my husband.
When I sew, I’ll give the big boys a needle and embroidery thread and let them “sew” on a scrap piece of fabric. Whenever it snows and the walks need cleared, my husband will take one or two of the boys and together they’ll clear the walk at our house, our neighbors house and our church.
Sidetracked Sarah says
That’s great Erin. Sounds like you all do a great job of working together. Thanks for sharing!
Suanna says
We recently spent a game day interspersed with our cleaning tasks. We had fun and they kids didn’t complain much about their chores and they did them in a timely fashion. Try to purposefully enjoy your children and keep your own attitude positive are what I have found helps me. I also like to read books to my children.
Sidetracked Sarah says
That’s a good idea to have a game day at the same time. My kids would love that!
Kasey says
Wonderful post, Sarah! I’m terribly guilty of letting the quality in our time together slide.
Sidetracked Sarah says
Thanks Kasey! It can be easy to let that slide. I’m guilty more than I’d like to admit, too, but at least God brings these things to our attention so we can work on them.
Yvonne Furbee says
Thanks for great reminder:) I loved the quote the “more quality time you spend with them now,the more they’ll want to spend with you later”. Sometimes when there still so little it ‘s hard to think of them as adults all grown up!
Sidetracked Sarah says
That is so true. We tend to not realize how fast they all grow up. Now that I have bigs and littles, I have noticed how fast the time goes by and how fast they are growing into adults!
Corine says
Excellent! I soooo agree!
BTW. I also do the dinner weekly rotations. I have four youth, each of them has one day of the week to cook. Sometimes they do it alone; I like it best when we work together! 🙂
Jenni says
Wonderful reminder! We have 3 boys 13, 11, and 9.
My husband is the one who does best at making quantities of quality time for our boys. He has a chess board out at all times in his office and at least one boy stops in for a chat and a game several days a week. He also reads to them every night religiously, launching reading time with a wrestling match. Every year he takes each one individually on an overnight trip (usually somewhere cheap and close, like a campground, sometimes something more extravagant) and usually we will all go camping at least once. The boys each have certain chores that they help him with. He’s found that he and our oldest do the best talking while splitting firewood.
We both try to always take one of the boys one-on-one whenever we have to leave the house. The boys rotate as my kitchen helper, and every week one gets to help with dinner & grocery shopping, and choose the special meal for family night. We’re pretty good about keeping family night every week. I feel like I really need to prioritize more one-on-one time with each of them, though. We’ve tried monthly dates and other plans, but I have really have a hard time making that bonding time together with them now that they’re older, other than school activities.
Lori Poppinga says
So true and right on! Children learn so differently and finding the way to encourage them in hardwork and diligence is often a challenge. So glad you had that quality time. As my children are growing and marching out the door to lives away from “home” I am thankful for the quality time spent with them and that they not only love me, but like me as well.
Keep up the God work.
Kim S says
My heart has been burdened by this lately. I hadn’t stop to think about how valuable some of the time we DO spend is. Cleaning together is an excellent example. Thanks for an encouraging post.
Naomi Rawlings says
What great ideas for spending time with your kids. I must admit, I have two little boys under five, and I cringe when the want to help me clean the bathroom or kitchen. It takes twice as long!
However, I recently started making my five year old pick up his room on his own rather than with me, because I find it’s teaching him to be responsible for his own messes. Maybe one day I’ll switch back to cleaning together. 🙂