Being OK With The Way Our Kids Help Out Around The House
EPISODE 40
by Dianne Jimenez
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Being OK With The Way Our Kids Help Out Around The House
Do you often say: ‘Oh, I’ll just do it myself, it’s easier’ or ‘It’ll get done properly if I do it’ when it comes to maintaining your home?
You’re not alone.
Let’s face it, the way they do things isn’t the same way we do them nor the way we taught them how to do it. It can cause frustrations sometimes and the temptation to just redo the whole thing ourselves (waste of time, by the way) or just do it ourselves from the get-go.
Resist.
In this episode you’ll learn the strategies I use to get passed through those thoughts and feelings so tune in. Hope you enjoy this episode my friend!
Want to go from 'drowning' to peace of mind?
But first: Life with kids at home – and being OK…
Currently, the kids are home for the summer so you might hear some noises in the background. To be honest, there are definitely some pros and cons with the summer schedule. One pro is having more flexibility in our time. And the con? Having to structure my work day because of that flexibility. Lol. I know it sounds ridiculous but if you’ve ever had to work from home with the kids at home, you know what I mean and I believe most parents do!
But not only that, the struggle to structure your day and then having to switch it up on a moment’s notice because the kids are just…. Being kids, on top of battling with your own mood and mental capacity. It’s not easy and you hardly feel productive. Speaking of which, my last podcast episode talks about this,( being unproductive with my work), and what I’m doing differently this summer so I’m not MIA on my podcast for 6 months (like I was last year).
What ‘being OK’ means
So this episode is about taking a step back and observing the WAY our kids do things around the house and …as hard as it is sometimes not to fix it or do everything ourselves, this episode is about helping you with all of that AND being OK with the way they do things.
Whether you taught them properly from the get-go or half-ass like I did on some (or most things), over time, we tend to get a little lazy or not so thorough when performing tasks around the house. And this is especially true if no one’s saying anything about it. Or the potential bad habits aren’t being addressed. So lack of thoroughness turns out to be our norm.
What’s the problem?
The quick answer is the house isn’t as clean and tidy on a regular basis. But when we need or want the house cleaner, it takes a lot longer to get it to that state we want. In some cases, that’s ‘guest’ ready. In my case it’s when our parents or in-laws show up! Lol Nah, I’m kidding.
Basically, for me, it’s about spending less time cleaning, scrubbing, picking things up and figuring out where things go, and feeling frustrated all the time. This isn’t the life I want nor is it the person I want my family to be around. And I’m sure they don’t want to be cleaning and getting nagged all the time either.
So the long answer for “what’s the problem with not being so thorough or doing things ‘half-ass’”? Well, it’s about habit and consistency.
Funny, I was JUST talking to a friend the other day about this. Like a great listener to my podcast, she’s been applying some of my tips, tricks and strategies with her family. And the result? She’s seeing progress and changes both inside her home and among her family members. They’re more involved and taking initiative with helping to maintain their home and she’s absolutely loving it! Ah! Music to my ears!
Listen to “Being OK With The Way Our Kids Help Out Around The House
find out how families with 3+ kids tackle the beast: laundry!
Consistency is key to being OK
The one thing we both wholeheartedly agree on is that it’s truly about being consistent with maintaining the habits, consistent about the standards you want upheld and being consistent yourself with ensuring everyone’s doing their part.
Hey, if this sounds challenging and tough – you’re right it is. But the hard work, effort and a little bit of time you put into each day, will pay off big time in the near future!
So going back to consistency and habits…
As you know, bad habits are hard to break and good ones are hard to maintain – especially if you don’t get any results or gratification right away. So you end up cutting corners….
- Put it this way, do you often say: ‘Oh, I’ll just do it myself, it’s easier or it’ll get done properly’ when it comes to maintaining your home?
Yeah – it’s a lot easier and quicker, which gets results. However, this only solves the right-now problem, not the system as a whole. And that can totally bite you in the butt later on.
There’s no break in the cycle
Picture this: If we tend to take care of all the things because it’s faster, done properly or it’s just easier, then it’ll ALWAYS land on YOU to fix, solve, clean, organize, setup….
Then later on, when we’re pretty much done with doing all the things but there’s still more work to be done, we end up having to hire someone to do it for us; because we just can’t anymore. Or, the kids follow suit because they’ve never learned how to do things (and it’s just quicker, easier and faster if they pay someone else to do it). There’s no break in the cycle.
So the goal of this episode is to guide you on how to get past the annoyance and immediate reaction to redoing the work yourself. And where’s the best place to start? Not out there, in the different spaces of your home, but from within: That’s you.
Now I don’t mean to ruffle any feathers, by all means. To be honest, I’m one to always look from within when things could be improved: What can I do better, do different, tweak? So that it’ll be better the next time? Or things will run a lot smoother. Or maybe, so I don’t have to keep going over things again and again, and again?
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My Secret Sauce for setting the kids up for success
Even being OK means there are things (they do) that drive me nuts
First off, let’s observe what happens around our house. I’m going to list you a few things my kids do right now. At the time of this recording, my kids are 12, 10 and 9. Now just to be clear, this isn’t a complaint – it’s merely an observation. I’m stating facts and removing all emotions and feelings it can cause me.
Folding:
The way Kenzo folds clothes → his technique vs ours : It’s more cylindrical than flat. The result of this is we can fit less shirts in our drawers so sometimes, Onnig and I will end up refolding it. Or, because he doesn’t always fold with the front of the shirt exposed, by the time he’s done rolling it, you can’t tell who’s black shirt it is…So sometimes, we have to undo it and then refold it.
Sweeping:
How they wipe the table or sweep the floors differently from us and from each other. If you’ve ever watched your kids wipe or sweep things, it’s never crumb free.
Putting away clothes:
The way they put back their clothes in the drawer, not aligned and definitely not what it looks like when I post pics on social media. Maybe after this episode, I’ll post a comparison: ‘our method vs the way they do it’ so you see what I mean.
Side note: what looks perfect and in place on social media is only a snapshot of real life. After that post, life happens, it gets messy and we have to tidy things up. It’s totally normal – especially when you have kids!
Wiping:
The way Kehlani wipes the mirrors and glass. If you’ve listened to a past podcast episode where she decided to clean the outside bay window a couple of years ago and attached a wet, soapy paper towel at the end of the Swiffer wet mop and started scrubbing the window. She didn’t come back to wipe or rinse it. To her, it was done. There were streaks on our windows for weeks. She decided to do a similar thing after cleaning the upstairs bathroom. She used a Lysol wipe to wipe down our mirrors in the bathroom. Her heart and thoughts are in the best place. That’s all I gotta say.
Dusting:
The way they dust using the Swiffer. I saw my oldest, Kai dusting and it was like they did it on TV with a feather duster: light to the tough and quick. No lifting of the items on the table, just Swiffering, if he touched the surface, around it.
Other things:
How my kids don’t do the obvious things like open BOTH layers of their blinds in the mornings when it’s super dark in their room (because they have a sheer one and a black-out blinds). They’ll sometimes just open one.
Listen to “Being OK With The Way Our Kids Help Out Around The House
3 things to establish now before losing your s#!t later on (during the school year)
What’s the point of all these observations and being OK?
It’s a big challenge sometimes NOT to just fix whatever it is, right then and there. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t always let things slide. But when I catch myself saying: “wait, It’s OK”. I trust it. Because oftentimes, ‘done’ is better than ‘not done’. And good enough is simply, good enough.
In other words, allowing yourself to think beyond the immediate reaction to fix or redo and looking at the big picture (teaching kids life skills and setting them up for success into adulthood), allows us to slow down even a little bit. And this is a good thing.
Whenever you notice how they do things, take it from their perspective and put a positive light in there. For instance, if I take my examples from before, the way my youngest folds. Yes, it’s round and there are wrinkles when we unroll them. Yes, sometimes we have to unfold some of our things so they’ll fit. And yes, it’s annoying. But the big picture, it’s giving our kids opportunities to try, learn and participate. My friend, these are all wins.
Bottom line: He folded a whole basket of laundry on his own. That’s a huge win for all of us. 1 less thing to do, 1 less thing that’s reminding us “hey, fold me!”, and most of all, 1 less thing that will weigh on me mentally. That in itself is a huge win.
Being OK means shifting our mindset
In essence, it’s about shifting our mindset from potentially reacting to what we see and looking internally first. By doing this, it helps us move forward and not stay stuck questioning ourselves “why do they keep doing it like this? I might as well do it myself!”
Also, looking from within ourselves helps us to slow down and give us more headspace to come up with the next best thing we could do for them, as well as for ourselves mentally.
So how do we go about moving forward or doing the next best thing? Well, you can do 1 of the following 3 strategies whenever you feel the urge to redo, flip out or a combo of the two.
Listen to “Being OK With The Way Our Kids Help Out Around The House
Free training: "How to find time in a busy schedule"
Do one of these instead
Set expectations
Last summer was starting to look like how the summers were, pre-Covid. Meaning, the kids’ were going to be in and out all day, every day: From the pool to going to their friends houses, to having them all over for a few hours to full on sleepovers. You know, the memorable summers we try to create.
Anyway, as I was explaining this to my husband and “setting his expectations”, I think verbalizing it, come to think of it, was me trying to wrap my head around what the next 9 weeks were going to be like.
To illustrate, the house would not be as tidy as I’d like it to be because we’d hardly be home. I think my exact words to him were: “Don’t expect the floors to be mopped each week”. Continued by “the kids are in and out from the pool and the park… I won’t be able to keep up and be with them all the time…” Because I still have to watch my kids at the pool.
Thankfully, he totally got where I was coming from and that eased my mind a whole lot.
Now this summer’s a little different because we’ve implemented a chart system a few months ago that gets everyone involved in helping out. So now, it’s not ALL on me to maintain the house. It’s on them too – especially because they like having their friends over!.
You’ll hear more about this new chart system in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
What season are you in?
So to help with setting expectations, look at the time of year it is: what season is it in your life? Meaning, where are you? Do you have toddlers, or a mix of young and older kids? In the podcast interview I had with my husband, back on episode #32; I asked Onnig about his thoughts on the state of our house when we had toddlers and babies. His reply couldn’t be more perfect. He said – the cleanliness of the house wasn’t the priority. It was making sure the kids were fed, clothed and cared for. Everything else was secondary. Boom.
Now when it comes to the season in the kids’ life, it’s about how old they are, what they’re capable of doing and all of this based on their schedule. In other words, what can they successfully do given how busy they are with activities, events, appointments, etc.?
Getting real about all of this can help us big time about being OK. It’ll also help regulate our own emotions when it comes to the way the kids perform their tasks and chores at home.
My second strategy to help us do the next best thing after seeing the outcome of our kids’ work, fight the urge to redo it all and avoid getting frustrated: is to be thankful.
Listen to “Being OK With The Way Our Kids Help Out Around The House
Stay on track with laundry & tips to getting the kids involved
Be thankful
Yes. This could be a really hard pill to swallow when the effort looks like it’s subpar but let’s cut ourselves some slack, and them too, ok? Being thankful that the task or chore is done at their capacity ties in a lot with the season you’re all in as explained in strategy number 1.
When it comes to capabilities for example, 6 year-olds don’t fold as well as 9-10 or even 12 year-olds. I see it in the way my 12 year old does it vs his younger siblings. Their attention to detail is so different but it doesn’t mean you can’t tweak things. Which brings me to my next tip.
But first, congrats! You lived another day in a cleaner, more organized house the kids helped to maintain. Remember: Being OK means every little bit counts in the grand scheme of things, right?
Re-educate or tweak
So my third strategy to refrain from just doing it all ourselves, reduce the overwhelm and just be OK with the way our kids do things: is to take the time and re-educate them. Hey, it happens like I mentioned at the beginning. We all get lazy sometimes when our work’s not being monitored or no one’s really saying anything about it. So before any bad habits stick, let’s get in there and nip it at the bud.
So just by asking: ‘Show me exactly how you do this (insert task or chore)’, it can give you loads of information about how well they’ve interpreted your instructions from way back when. And whether or not you’ll need to reintroduce or tweak their system or sequence so the results are exactly how you want them to be.
However, there is a chance you may not need to do any of that because they’ve come up with their own ways of doing things. And this is great because I’m a firm believer of many solutions to a problem. So it’s very possible that whatever they show you sheds some light about them and the way they see things. It’s pretty magical when you take a moment to capture that.
The proverb ‘When 1 teaches, 2 will learn’ by Robert A. Heinlein is so fitting here. As their first teacher, you will learn so much along the way – but I know you know this already.
Recap
Now let’s just do a quick recap of the 3 strategies for being OK with the way our kids help out around the house:
- Our kids will do their tasks and it won’t always result in the way we’d like it to be
- So instead of thinking you should just do it yourself next time or redoing it right then and there
- Slow down your thoughts and look inwards to do 1 of these 3 strategies:
- Set expectations: What season you are in life: How busy are you and what can the kids really do based on the busyness of life
- Be thankful. This goes hand in hand with life’s busyness. Remember: Done is better than not done and good enough is good enough. And,
- Re-educate or tweak: Let them walk you through the way they do the task. This’ll give you a lot of intel on whether or not you need to go over the whole process with them or just tweak their method of doing things so the results are exactly how you want them to be.
Call To Action
So before I go, here’s what I’m asking you to do: Pick just 1 task that your kid is doing that’s not quite at the level it could be at and go through 1 of the strategies: Set your expectation, Be thankful, Re-educate or tweak. If you’re game, tag me in your stories with the strategy you’re using. I want to give you some virtual PDA about being OK!
Alright my friend! Thank you SO much for tuning in today and taking me along with you on your walk, drive or just tidying up. Don’t forget you can share this episode on social media from wherever you’re listening to this podcast. More eyes on my show means helping more parents out there who could really use some guidance and direction.
With that, have a wonderful day and I’ll see you next time! Take care.
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Way cool! Some very valid points! I appreciate you penning this post and the rest of the website is also very good.