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Answer for Laura Series: Part 1

Let me preface this first post with this:
Laura- First let me say that you are in my thoughts and prayers. I do check your blog every so often and was so excited to see you begin to homeschool this year. I want to encourage you to continue doing what is best for your family. I am so glad and humbled that you have asked my advice. I’m glad to hear that you aren’t quite ready to “throw in the towel”. If you feel God has led you to homeschooling, then I encourage you to keep at it. With that said- homeschooling can sure mess up a tidy home!

Let’s start with their bedroom(s).
Room cleaning- with my children I found that telling them to clean their room was too “broad” a command. In order for them to be efficient they needed it broken down into steps. Just as Flylady (www.flylady.net- I absolutely love the zone cleaning!) has her zones for our homes- there are zones for my kiddos. We don’t clean in one day. We tackle certain zones. For example- each day they are to make their bed- then on Mondays they pick up any books/toys/clothes on the floor, on Tuesdays they clean their desks, Wednesday is trash day, on Thursday they tidy their bookshelves and on Friday they pick up again like Monday. Saturday is catch-up, tidy-up day (sheet changing day too). I made each girl a laminated flip chart with words & pictures to remind them of each job for each day of the week. Most days they have these simple jobs done in 15 minutes or less. That’s it- 15 minutes a day keeps their room clean.
A couple of rules of thumb I stick to- you cannot play or do anything else until the toy/game/fill-in-blank you were just playing with is put away and if you do so anyway and I remind you and you ignore me- you lose whatever it was you wanted to play with and whatever it was you just finished playing with until evening. The other rule of thumb- is quick tidy-ups at certain times of the day. We don’t eat lunch until toys are picked up (hold fast to this one- they do get hungry!)- if it’s an elaborate Lego creation that you plan on playing with after lunch- I will make an exception- as long as it’s not on the kitchen table. We clean up before lunch, before quiet time, before supper and before bed [no bedtime story until pick up is finished]. That seems like a lot but it’s really just a 5 minute tidying time each time- averaging 20 minutes of our day overall.
I find my 3 yo “Mr. Conductor” is the one who bucks my system the most. So I make it fun- I ask him to pick up 5 toys or I race him to see who can finish what they are doing faster or we try to see how many “baskets” we can make in a row picking up and tossing toys into their bins. When this fails, and it sometimes does, he loses the toy(s) until evening.
Also of good note: My children rarely play out of sight from me- which makes it easy for me to see if they are adhering to the put-away-before-getting-something-else-out rule. When we are schooling at the dining room table, Mr. Conductor plays in the same room or in the living room next to us. Right now we have all 3 kids in one bedroom- so there really is no room to play there. If they are playing in their room, and I can’t see them, I check on them every so often (20 minutes or so-- or sooner if I hear lots of banging around etc.) to make sure they aren’t tearing the room apart. If the room doesn’t look so good- I set the timer for 15 minutes and assign an area/quadrant to be cleaned up then set it again for another 15 minutes for another assigned area (it is usually clean in under 30 minutes). They abide by this very well now, but in the beginning I would often find them playing instead of cleaning. When this happened I gave them 1 warning and another 15 minutes on the timer, after that- I would swoop in with a laundry basket and pick up everything that wasn’t nailed down and hold it hostage. How did they get it back? By doing extra jobs- such as sweeping the steps or the patio, cleaning the cat box, picking up sticks out of the yard, pulling weeds . . . . any little job that doesn’t normally get done every day. We even use to have an Extra Jobs list posted on the fridge for reference. This system has since become such a habit for us all that the extra job list is filed away and extra jobs now get done when someone desires to earn a little bit of cash.
Next: Part 2: Keeping up the home while homeschooling

Thank You!

12:44 PM, 2007-Oct-17 .. Posted by Laura

Amy, I just have to say thanks for this post... and I have to say also that I suspect you prayed for me before your post yesterday...

How do I know this? Well, we have music class on Tuesday, a big group of homeschool families, and we are of course the newbies. I haven't really clicked with a lot of the moms - though we have chatted a bit here and there. Yesterday I thought I'd just skip the class, but my 6 year old loves the class, so we went. My spirits lifted during my 3 year olds class, and when my 6 year old was in class (therefore the 3 year old and I were on the playground with the other moms) we sat at the communal picnic tables so she could color. I listened in on the conversations around me, hoping to pick up some advice, and ended up sharing a thought or two with another mom. Then I just blurted out that I was doing something wrong and I was so frustrated and I was contemplating sending Michael back to school.

Immediately, all of these "Supermoms" as I had imagined them to be began to chatter and tell me there isn't a right way to do things, and their houses are messier than they'd like, and it is OK if we don't have a set curriculum yet since we are just starting out. They just encouraged me and encouraged me and encouraged me, and more importantly, they accepted me and let me know that I wasn't alone... which I thought I was, even though we've been going to this class for 6 weeks now and from all outward appearances, they seem to have it all together.

Amy, I know you prayed for me, didn't you? I left music class with a song in my heart, and not because of the class subject - I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders, and I knew I could do this, especially since it is what I feel God calling me to do. These ladies all told me about different methods of learning, including unschooling which is what we've been doing and what I felt guilty about, but it is what we need for this season. They assured me that Michael wouldn't be hurt by this since we do learn here and there from workbooks, books, and real life - in fact, some of them are still using the method with their much-older children.

Thank you, Amy. Thank you, thank you, thank you... this morning, when I awoke after a sleepless night, and actually felt like getting up because I wasn't under pressure, and came here to see your answers, I can only say that my spirit is refreshed and renewed. You are such a blessing - I'm so glad I found your blog so long ago, I just had no idea God would utilize you when I needed help and reached out here.

God bless you, and thank you again. I can't say it enough! :-)

To Laura-

1:23 PM, 2007-Oct-17 .. Posted by YPAmy5

Oh, my goodness- you made me cry- good tears, yes, good tears.
God is SOOOOOO good.
I am saying prayers of thanksgiving that He has answered our prayers so quickly and renewed your spirit so wonderfully!
I look forward to keeping up to date with you on this journey.
AND- I've got 4 more posts on this! LOL I did say I have the gift of gab did I not?!
Oh, thank you so much for taking the time to stop by and share this answer to prayer with me.
You are a sweetheart!
God Bless-
Amy W