Summer!

Now for a little expansion on my last post about our summer schedule.  I would like to reiterate that this schedule is for our convenience.  There have already been days, and there will be more, when we completely dispense with the schedule because something bigger is going on (for example: summer camps, company, etc.).  My summer schedule is really a guide for long, open days.  When our days are already scheduled for us and busy, we go with that.  Trying to do both is stressful, which goes against the whole point.  

Our week features a different theme each day.  Before the day begins we already have a plan for what we are going to do and when.  I am a planner (can you tell?), so usually Sunday evening is our family planning day.  We discuss any formal plans or schedules and coordinate.  The event only takes up part of the day, except for rare occasions, so they don’t feel like I’m smothering them.  Some of our themes we’ve used are:

• Cleaning Day consists of one big cleaning job that we all complete together, such as deep cleaning a room.  I limit the time involved to about an hour or so, and then they have free time for the rest of the day.  Simple.  We don’t spend the whole day cleaning.  Yes, it’s more work to have little ones help you clean than doing it yourself.  No, it doesn’t get as clean as it would doing it yourself.  But we turn on music and have as much fun as someone can when cleaning.  And believe it or not, all these years of having my kids do chores are starting to pay off.  My teenagers are pretty decent housekeepers if I keep my finger on them.  I like to remind them that the maid isn’t coming today (I’m still waiting for her), and I can’t do it all, so they have to pitch in.

• Cooking Day:  it’s important to me to teach my kids how to cook good food.  Cooking day consists of all of us making a recipe together.  Sometimes it’s basic, like bread and sometimes it’s fun like caramel apples.  But we have a lot of fun doing it and I hope they are learning skills for the future.  Oh, and everyone helps clean up.

• Outing Day has been as simple as a picnic at the park and as complicated as riding the city bus into town and window shopping for the afternoon.  (Try it—your kids will love it)  My kids like to give suggestions and I make the final plans.  Some fun things we’ve done  include touring local businesses (candy factory, honey/beehive business, dairy), hikes, visiting dad at work for lunch, making boats from recycled trash and racing them in the stream at the park, and eating out.

• Movie Day: we watch a movie, sometimes in our pajamas, complete with popcorn and other treats.  Make sure you turn off the ringers and don’t answer the door.

• Friend Day is when each child gets to schedule a play date with a friend at our house.  This is usually reserved for those friends not in our neighborhood—you know the ones that you actually have to call beforehand.

• Library Day:  we’re big readers at our house and we go to the library regularly.  Library day serves two purposes:  to remind me to get us there often, and to keep the kids reading--if they know they have to return a book on a certain day, they'll make sure they finish it before then.  We also participate in the summer reading program so the kids are motivated to go and redeem prizes, etc.  Usually I schedule library day before movie day so we have a few movies to choose from.

I hope you send your summer activity ideas my way so I can add to this list.   Next time, look forward to a post about how I get my kids to pitch in even more.  This goes way beyond chores. 

Laundry

I recently heard a woman lament over her daily tasks, one of which was to throw in a load of laundry--every day.  I was shocked.  I realized that I have a great laundry system.  I learned by example while growing up and have added some of my own ideas.

1. Do laundry only once a week.  Pick a day and set it in stone.  Unless someone has an accident or we make an unusually messy mess, everything goes in our dirty clothes baskets and stays there until Tuesday.  I also keep a smaller basket with large holes all over it for ventilation in the laundry room for wet dirty things to avoid mold in the bedroom baskets.   BENEFITS:  1: Doing laundry only weekly reduces the volume of laundry because doing it more often gives you a chance to go looking for things to clean in order to make a full load.  2: You will also save energy because you are washing full loads rather than daily small loads.  3: More household order because when laundry is a daily event, it is always in some part of the process, which means you always have laundry out, which means a mess.  4: Children learn to economize by not changing clothes multiple times per day or throwing clean clothes in the laundry basket to avoid putting it away when they know they have a whole week before it will be returned to them.
2. Allow your children to fold their own laundry and put it away.  Pick an age when your children are old enough to start folding their own laundry and deliver them a pile of freshly washed laundry.  They need to fold it and put it away.  We started this at age 6 in our family.  Teach them the basics and then let them do it even if it's not 'right' or 'good.'  Be patient.  The goal is not to have picturesque dresser drawers.  The goal is to raise independent children.  BENEFITS:  1: Children learn life skills and gain confidence as they master those skills.  2: Children gain a sense of ownership and pride in their possessions and management of life.  3: Your workload is lightened.
3. Allow your children to wash their own laundry when they are mature enough.  This isn't always an age-based decision.  Some of my children were ready to start doing their own laundry at age 11 and some not until 13.  Just like me, they get one day a week to do their laundry.  BENEFITS:  1: Children learn to use the laundry machines and basic laundry principles.  (My daughter learned this lesson the hard way recently when she washed new jeans with something white and had to figure out how to reverse the damage).  2:  Again, children take ownership.  They learn that there is no laundry fairy.  3:  Again, children learn to economize by not producing more laundry than they are willing to wash and put away.
4. To work up to #3, allow your children to wash a load of something a couple of years before they are ready to do laundry.  We started with the throw rugs and towels.  One child is responsible for washing all the bathroom towels or all the throw rugs once a week and putting them away neatly.  BENEFITS:  1: They learn laundry basics in a simple setting.  It's hard to mess up towels.  2: Your load is lightened. 
5. Develop a system and teach your family to use it.  Have a designated place for dirty clothes, sorting laundry, clean laundry (I have a dirty basket in each bedroom and a 4-bag sorter in the laundry room and two baskets for clean things).  Make policies about how and where laundry is to be folded.  (My pet peeve is laundry in the living room so we have a rule that they have to fold it in their bedrooms or in the laundry room.  My other pet peeve was piles of clothes all over the floor during laundry day, which motivated me to buy the laundry sorter and additional baskets)  BENEFITS:  1: You don't have to wander the house looking for stray laundry on laundry day.  2: Clean and dirty clothes aren't getting mixed up.  3: Regular systems streamline the time you spend on chores because you aren't thinking and solving problems as you go along.  Decide once how it's done and then turn on auto-pilot.

I appreciate my mom's example of laundry once a week.  It makes my laundry day full, but it frees up the rest of the week for other tasks.  One thing I wish she had done was to allow me to do my own laundry.  We had to fold all the household laundry once it was washed, but I had to call her when I went away to college to figure out the washing machine.  One of my favorite things to say to kids when they complain about helping with the laundry (because they will at first) is "You don't have to do it as long as you don't wear clothes."  So far no one's taken me up on that.