Blog

I haven’t blogged in many months, so this is just to make it official that this area is closed for the time being. I am focusing all of my time on adding new features to the site and there is no time left to keep this updated. I’ll keep this feature open, however, because some of the old entries may still be of use.

I do intend to add blog entries again some time in the future, but this message is for those who may see the dates on the blog entries and think that this site is no longer in use. Rest assured that the other areas of the site are very active.

Scott Somerville posted a collection of How Dads Participate in Homeschooling taken from the comments on the Spunky Homeschool site a few months back, but it is still worth a read if you have not had a chance yet.

Also, Ohio Dads, be sure to check out the Men of Vision Conference this February where Scott will be speaking. The website says that sons are invited to attend as well. I contacted CHEO for more information on what age ranges would be appropriate and received a reply that ages 10-12 would probably be the youngest that would benefit from the conference.

Christine over at the Thinking Mother blog takes on this issue with her entry On My Mind: Starting Daily Chores For My Children.

We are going through a similar backsliding in our house. We do have a list of cleaning tasks, and it has become a natural part of their routine. But we have to keep on them to have the house cleaned by bed-time.

As a side note, I had a flash of insight a year or so ago. Our house was messy with toys, and they would add to and clean up about the same amount each day, leaving it in around the same messy state. since they were cleaning about the same amount as they are messing up, I realized that, if I could get the house to the ‘perfect’ state where I wanted it, they could return it to that state each night by doing the same amount of cleanup as they were already doing.

It took a lot of training and saying, “No, it’s not done yet. No, I won’t tell you what is left to do. I’ve shown you what it looks like when it’s completely done. You come tell me when you think it is finished.” It’s not perfect yet, but this system works pretty well. We have the luxury of going to bed almost every night with a clean house, and they have the closure of knowing that the cleaning really is done – it’s not just that Mom and Dad got tired to cajoling and said that was enough for the night.

Even with the list, though, they are not coming close to offloading enough of the burden to make Mom’s life easier.

I think part of the problem is that they have grown, so the old list needs to be updated, and tasks need to be added for the youngest as well, since she is now old enough to pitch in.

Still wondering how to handle the money issue. We want them to work just because they are part of the family. And we want to give them some discretionary money so they can develop good stewardship. It is natural to want to tie the two together, but I don’t think that is best. We might be due for a change in this area.

I know this is a topic that just about any Mom with more that one child is concerned about. I found this very practical discussion from a lady who was homeschooled herself and has passed along what worked well in her family.

I also purchased Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends
a while back, which covers the same topic. I’ve only read the first chapter so far, so I can’t comment on how effective it is yet.

Here is a helpful little list that I found over at the Vision Forum that I thought was worth highlighting.

There are a lot of misconceptions that Christians have regarding relationships to money and business ownership. I went through a Crown Financial study a few years ago and surprised to discover how much I didn’t know that I didn’t know about the depth of coverage in the Bible regarding these topics.

I’m open if anyone wants to chat about these topics.