Here’s how you handle things when the kids say they’re bored and want you to help them figure out what to do. Take a bunch of popsicle sticks, and write a chore on each one, and place in the jar. Have the kids draw a chore stick from a jar when they say they’re bored.

The idea here is to encourage your kids to find their own way to keep busy. If they can’t find their own way to play, you make it less fun.

These don’t have to be big chores. All you need is enough work that kids don’t want to complain of boredom to you. Most will quickly learn to find something to do other than chores.

And of course, the chore sticks are also good when you actually need the kids to get some chores done. You can have them draw their assignments or have them compete to see who can complete the most chore stick assignments in a given amount of time. Some kids love to compete on stuff like that.

Here are some age appropriate chore ideas to get you started. The ages are approximate and the list is just ideas. You can probably think of more things your child can do at each age.:

Toddler (ages 2-3)

• Pick up/put away toys
• Pick up dirty clothes and put in hamper
• Unload the dishwasher (unbreakable items, nothing sharp)
• Dust with cloth
• Help move clothes from washer to dryer
• Make bed

Preschooler (ages 4-5)

• All previous chores
• Set/clear table
• Wash dishes with supervision
• Load dishwasher
• Help sort laundry
• Match socks
• Sort trash vs recycling
• Weed (after teaching what weeds are, supervision recommended)
• Water plants
• Feed pets

Early Elementary (ages 6-8)

• All previous chores
• Assist with meal prep (make salad, find ingredients, etc.)
• Help cook
• Vacuum
• Help put away groceries
• Fold laundry
• Put away laundry after folding
• Take out trash/recycling
• Get mail
• Read to younger siblings
• Rake leaves
• Clean up after dog or cat

Elementary (ages 9-11)

• All previous chores
• Make simple meals
• Take dog for walk
• Wash car
• Take garbage/recycling to the curb
• Mop floors

Middle School (ages 12-14)

• All previous chores
• Make full meals/meal plan
• Clean out fridge/freezer

High School (ages 15-18 or until they leave home)

• All previous chores
• Any chore they haven’t learned yet but will need to do as an adult

See, Mom? I TOLD you chores would be part of the list!

The post Chore Sticks – Day 23 of 30 Days of Keeping Kids Busy During the Summer appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Not all of the challenges of running a home business relate to the business itself. There’s also the need to keep up with family and the house. It’s a whole lot of work, and it can be exhausting. But it’s common when you’re home all day to feel obligated to handle it all. How can you do it?

Keep Your Family Involved

The first thing to do is to give up on the idea that it’s all your responsibility. If you have a work at home job or a home business, you deserve the same sort of consideration as those who work outside the home. Get everyone else in the house involved at appropriate levels, even if they work outside the home or go to school. Anyone who is physically capable of helping should have appropriate responsibilities around the house.

Make sure you count responsibilities both inside the house and outside. Mowing the lawn is just as much a part of keeping the family home going as cleaning the kitchen. Divide things up to balance personal preferences and how much each person is having to do aside from housework, such as holding down a job or going to school.

Don’t Let Messes Get a Head Start

One of the easiest ways to keep your home from being a mess is to avoid the mess in the first place. Clean up the mess of cooking as you go as much as possible. Have the kids pick up their toys as soon as they’re done with them. Get rid of clutter.

Do a Little Cleaning Every Day

For those little chores that add up to so much, keep up by doing a little bit every day. Do the sweeping and mopping, the dusting or the vacuuming. If you don’t have to do them all at once, they don’t feel quite so overwhelming.

It’s really amazing what you can get done in 15 minutes if you don’t let the messes get too far ahead. It makes doing small amounts of other types of cleaning each day practical.

Pick the Right Time for the Big Chores

Don’t let the big chores get in the way of what you need to do for your home business. Plan things out so you can handle the big cleaning projects, the laundry and so forth when they won’t keep you from having a productive day of work. They have to get done, you’re home, but do they have to be done right now or can they wait for a more convenient time?

Your house can deal with being a bit messy for a time if you have more important priorities, especially if your family relies on the income from your work. Don’t let cleaning get in the way of earning the income you need.

The post Running Your Home Business and Keeping Up the House – How Do You Manage Both? appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Children Benefit From Mom’s Choice To Stay Home!

Some mothers may see the constant load of laundry coming from the dryer as just another everyday chore. A task that gets hard and harder, especially when balancing the needs of a screaming 10-month-old baby, a 7-year-old and a list of household chores beginning with a sink filled with dishes to wash, dinner to make and floors to clean. As if that were not enough, you have a husband who is ready to eat when he steps through the front door. But don’t let your mind play tricks on you. It is easy to feel overwhelmed unless tasks are broken down into manageable chucks and sometimes tasks are delegated. Try to fix child-friendly recipes and let the 7-seven-year-old help in the kitchen. Have your husband aid in clearing the dining room table.

Delegation Is Key To Success For Stay-At-Home Moms!

This will help you be able to accomplish tasks more quickly and let your child learn how to be responsible. Delegate some tasks. There is no reason why your husband cannot help change a diaper, help with your child’s homework assignment, take the baby awhile so you can have a few minutes of quiet or offer to help with the baby. Plus, delegation can have extra benefits. It can help strengthen a marriage. If your spouse comes home, eats dinner and plots down in the recliner to watch television and leaves you with dishes to wash, a son who needs help completing his homework assignment and a baby who needs feed every few hours, you are quickly going to succumb to exhaustion, be overwhelmed, depressed and constantly feel like a maid instead of a wife and stay-at-mother. Tasks must be split up so that one spouse isn’t doing 96 percent of the workload.

What Tasks Can Be Delegated?

Here are lists of tasks that may be delegated. Others can be added. Use imagination. This will help one discover what works for them, so they can restore order to their sometimes chaotic schedule.

• Washing the dishes
• Walking the dog (if you have a pet)
• Caring for the baby (even if it is for short intervals at a time a spouse can assist in this task or even a friend who doesn’t mind lending a helping hand)
• Making dinner
• Doing the grocery shopping
• Picking up around the house/dusting
• Vacuum the floors
• Sort and/or fold laundry
• Change the bed sheets
• Take out the garbage

You Can Make It Work!

Be realistic. There may be some items that you may not be able to afford on one salary. They may require your spouse to save up money longer. Are there still wrinkles in the freshly made bed? Does it matter? Be sure to delegate tasks. If delegating some tasks are not possible and you are feeling overwhelmed, ask for support. If your spouse isn’t willing to help in the tasks you need delegated, see if there are other friends or people around who can support you and help with certain tasks. If you are still feeling overwhelmed, confide in a friend you can trust or talk to a counselor. A counselor may be able to offer suggestions to help make everyday tasks less overwhelming, help deal with depression or loneliness and the task of staying home with children more enjoyable and rewarding.

Banish Those Regrets, Please!

Every few mothers would ever say “I wished I worked more when my children were little!” There may be days, yes, but very few mothers would trade getting to see their child’s smile every day, their first steps, or hearing their first word spoken – just to work outside the home. Don’t regret your decision to stay home. That time with your children cannot be replaced once it is gone. And, mothers with full-time jobs often see their children less than their daycare provider. In a 2003 study conducted by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and another by the Institute of Child Development of the University of Minnesota, researchers found that children who spent all day in a daycare center were likely to be exposed to more stress and more aggression than children being cared for at home. This is because stay-at-home moms have the opportunity to supervise their child’s care in a nurturing relaxed environment.

Don’t Apologize, Mother!

Being a mother is a job. Don’t apologize for not having a business title, such as Customer Service Manager or Product Development System Researcher or Industrial Engineer. Being a mother is a job title and it is yours! Moms can benefit from avoiding the stress of having an unsatisfactory job. Plus, they get to spend time with their children and help shape their development and see the “firsts” that happen in their child’s life.

Make Time for Fun!

Sometimes mothers who spend hours each day with children can miss out on having adult interaction. In order to not feel overwhelmed or swamped by responsibilities at home, take time and make time for fun. Plan a night out once a month with your spouse. This will give you something fun to look forward to each month. If this keeps both partners from feeling like they have nothing in common, do it. This is to keep both spouses from feeling as though they hardly talk. It will also give stay-at-home moms an opportunity to have some adult interaction. This will ensure tasks keep running smoothly in a stay-at-home mom’s household and both spouses can enjoy a healthy balance between “mommy needs” and wifely wishes. If this requires a babysitter for a night, hire one. Don’t apologize for wanting to spend an evening alone and out with your sweetheart!

Your Family Will Benefit!

Children benefit from Mom’s decision to stay at home. Delegating tasks is crucial for stay-at-home moms to be successful. Make a list of what tasks can be delegated and be sure to delegate those tasks to others. Don’t ever regret your decision to become a stay-at-home mom and don’t apologize to others because you are “just” a stay-at-home mom and not a manager or CEO in the “real” world. Schedule some time in your day to do fun activities for yourself, your children and your spouse so that no one in the family is overwhelmed or stressed by all the tasks that simply need to be completed. Make time for fun! Realize the whole family can take advantage of Mom staying home!

About the Author:  Angela Lytle is a self-employed mother of four and publisher of Swim Team Mom, a website for swim parents that features swim team gear with competitive swimsuits and quality brands like the speedo speedo fastskin swimsuit and much more for your swimmer’s needs.

The post Guest Post – Mothers Have The Advantage! appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

I’ve often found that one of the big challenges to working at home is getting the housework done at least adequately. When you really enjoy your work it’s hard to step away even when you know you ought to get those dishes done.

But I’ve also found that my kids are a great help. They’re 5 and 2, and very good about helping with chores. It’s just a matter of keeping things at their level.

Both help to empty the dishwasher, for example. The trick I use there is pretty simple. Their dishes are plastic, and so they can put them away in the drawer. Once again, low enough that they can do this easily. They also know to put the silverware away, except for items such as sharp knives.

They also help to sort the laundry. My son is still mostly nonverbal, but he does understand everything we tell him, so he is quite good at sorting the laundry. He grabs and item and I tell him which pile. My daughter of course already knows where most things go and only occasionally has to ask. They also like to help load the washing machine and push the clean, wet clothes into the dryer.

I have a cordless sweeper that the kids love to use. It doesn’t work as well as a vacuum, but for those small daily messes that I don’t want to haul the vacuum out for, it’s perfect. And it’s very light, so the kids can use it, and shuts down if it catches anything it can’t cope with. It’s actually hard to get my son to quit using this, as he loves it. They also love to use brooms, but they’re only sufficiently effective outside where they don’t have to worry so much about exactly where the dirt is going.

My daughter is old enough that she occasionally gets to wash dishes. Obviously these are not the ones that need heavy scrubbing or might break easily. But she considers it a real priveledge yet.

Certain aspects of meal preparation are also pretty kid friendly. Making salads, for example. Kids love to tear lettuce. Mine are much prone to sampling along the way, but at least they are snacking on something healthy. I also let them put the veggies that I have chopped into the bowl.

Quite possibly the most challenging chore for the kids is cleaning up their toys. They love helping me. It’s cleaning up after themselves that they resist. It’s probably the only chore they actually consider to be a chore to get done.

I think the difference is that it’s their job, not having fun with Mommy or Daddy. If one of us helps to clean, they’re a bit more willing. But if we are trying to do our own housework, they don’t want to clean their toys. I don’t know how your kids are about it, but mine don’t let many tactics work more than once. The fast clean was tremendous fun one day, but never since, even though my daughter loved being done so quickly.

I would like to hear from other parents how you get your younger children to clean. I don’t just mean the helping chores – those are relatively easy. You can talk about them, of course, if you like. But what about the ones they don’t enjoy so much but really need to do?

The post Assigning Chores to Toddlers and Preschoolers appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.