Balancing Your Life: Delegation & Family Team Work

Balancing Your Life:  Delegation & Family Team Work

Delegation is one of your most important jobs as manager of the home. Delegation is NOT abdication, but rather just a distribution of family jobs among the members.

Delegation is an important key to balancing your life.

Please don’t be guilty of buying the lie that “housework is my job”, robbing your children of the crucial lessons of responsibility, of feeling valued as an important member of the family, and creating unnecessary burdens for yourself.

We all live in the house.  We all make messes and we all benefit from the daily uses of home.  We should likewise all be maintaining it.  I think of The Little Red Hen as I write that 😉

Begin early.

The earlier you begin requiring your children to “play a part” with household responsibilities, the better.  Even a two-year-old can take things to the trash, place toys back in a basket, take objects to another room, etc.

Training them to pick up their own messes is so important and yet time-consuming enough to keep many moms from doing it.  It’s much easier to bend over and pick up Susie’s banana peeling off the floor if she has gone outside to play. But, one of those little things that turn out to be big is taking the time to call a child back from play, asking her to pick up her mess, and briefly explaining why. “We are all a team here and it’s important not to leave extra work for other people to clean up.”

In addition to picking up their own messes, I try to train their little eyes to see other things that need to be picked up or put away.  “If you walk by a piece of trash, throw it away….if you see something out of place and your headed in that direction, take it with you.” These little training moments can make a big difference in a large family with lots of clutter.

Fostering the right attitudes–the key to family teamwork

It should be natural for your children to understand the “team concept”.  They won’t always be necessarily excited about doing chores, but it should be a normal part of their day and taught properly, (emphasizing the opportunity to serve) will make them feel valued as a family member.

This is often the greatest challenge moms face in the area of delegation.  If attitudes are rotten, she is prone to avoid delegation to keep them at bay.  But ultimately, are there many life lessons more important than learning to work and serve with contentment?

The underpinning of contentment is gratitude in all things.  So to foster the right attitude you must always be fostering gratitude.  This doesn’t mean your children should be jumping up and down to do chores; just that they are willing to do them without a grumbling spirit.

Practical ways to foster gratitude:

• Read/tell stories—We love the old stories that uphold family unity and a spirit of contentment and gratitude between children and parents.  The Lamplighter series is a great set of books for character development and we also love short stories from Moral Lessons of Yesteryear.

• Replace wrong responses.  Often, especially with littles, the habits of the will are formed simply by pointing out wrong responses and replacing them with right ones.  A child who snarls at the request to sweep the floor is merely acting on impulse.  But helping him form the habit of contentment and keep the right perspective is an important part of our job.

“Johnny, I know you may not like sweeping the floor, but the Bible says that we are to do all things with thanksgiving.  Sweeping the floor is an opportunity to serve if you do it with the right attitude.”

• Give more jobs for the wrong attitude.  If a bad attitude is a recurring problem, it may be that they need to be given extra work to help them be grateful for a lesser amount.  I try not to make too big a fuss about this approach:  “OK…since you aren’t content with the job I gave you, you can do ____ too.”

• Praise.  Pointing out a right response–sometimes even to the whole family, can really bolster a child’s desire to respond correctly.  I especially try to “catch” a good attitude in a child who has been struggling and make a big deal about it.  I tell him, “That’s it…that’s the right attitude for serving–now you’re getting it!”

Nuts & Bolts of Chore Time

There are as many ways to delegate chores as there are families.  And, the system will always be changing as abilities, numbers and needs change.

A good rule of thumb: don’t give a job to an older child that a younger child could do. And, don’t underestimate jobs your children can tackle.  The end result should be less work for everyone.

I’ll list a few different ideas I’ve learned from others over the years, and I’m sure many of you have great ones you could share:

• Zones

Dividing the house into parts, each child is responsible for keeping his area clean.

• Rotating Chores

A list of chores is posted and each week/month the children are rotated to a different set of chores.  This prevents monotony and also makes sure they are being equipped in every area.  Of course age-appropriateness must be carefully considered.

• Buddy system

This works better in some families than others, depending on numbers and ages. A small child is assigned to work alongside an older child to better learn how to do a certain chore.

Other ideas:

• Kitchen helper

We have a different kitchen helper each night.  They help empty the dishwasher, set the table, help cook and clean up.  However, everyone is responsible for taking his plate and cup to the sink and maybe clearing the table.

Also, we try to get our older children in the habit of cooking on a regular basis, whether it’s one time a week or less often for the younger ones.  My oldest does a meal or two a week by herself; my next two do simpler meals like pancakes or omelets, and they help with making bread or desserts, etc.  Learning at least basic cooking skills is something all children should learn, and I think our girls should be well-equipped to prepare complete meals before they leave home.

• Cleaning Day

It works well for us to de-clutter during the week and do our main cleaning on one day.  Part of this arrangement requires me to just “let go” of unrealistic cleaning expectations.  We clean on Fridays and one of the reasons I think it works so well (sneaky mom trick ahead), is that Friday night is “movie night” and the kids are naturally in a better mood than usual which makes them more eager to clean cheerfully.  Told you it was tricky.  We still do school on Friday, but we do more reading and less seat work which also lends toward a happier day 😉

Assigning chores, training everyone to pick up after himself, fostering a spirit of contentment and keeping realistic expectations–it’s a full time job, but these things will lend to a more balanced life!

Part one of this series:  Balancing Your Life:  Define “Everything”

Part two of this series: Balancing Your Life: Simplify