I’ve been meaning to write this for ages and I’ve finally got round to it.
As a child, I always knew what I needed to do at home before I was allowed to play. I had ‘chores’ but I must admit I was rubbish at them!! When Jonah got to be the right age, I wanted to get him into the routine of doing a few things to help around the house and to get used to doing a bit of school work for when homework starts coming. And so my lists were born.
I’m a big fan of lists in general and Jonah is very particular about life so this seemed like a perfect way to keep him happy. The morning list is one of things that he needs to do before he comes downstairs. Make his bed, open his curtains, switch off his lamp and light and do his bathroom things. Nice and simple and for the most part he does them all. Grace is starting to do some of these where she can too.
The second list is an after school list. This happens regardless of whether there is an after school club or we go out straight from school. When we get home, the following has to be done:
1. Get changed. A really simple one and a bit of a hang over from covid when we wanted them into clean clothes. But it means that there is clear separation between school and home.
2. Put away the clean clothes in their room. Grace needs a bit of help with this but can do her underwear and trousers. Jonah can do this really well now.
3. Put away 4 things in their room. This is such an important one as it forces them to find a place for everything but on their own terms. If there aren’t 4 things to put away, they either put away things downstairs or they do a bit of dusting in their room.
4. This is their favourite – have a snack!!
5. Do 10 minutes ‘work’. This is based on what they need to do for school. Grace is practicing her writing and blending SATP sounds at the moment so we work on those. Jonah has TTRS and spellings to work through so that’s what he does. We also spend a few minutes writing the alphabet as his writing needs work.
As soon as they have done these they can do whatever they want. I try to get a different box of toys out each day but some days they just want a bit of comfort tv. They then help set the table for tea too.
The last list we have is for school holidays longer than a week. It starts with the morning list and adds on 10 minutes of reading, 30 minutes playing outside, help 1 person in the house and help tidy 1 room. It finishes with the after school list and the rest of the day is their own. In totally it will take about an hour, maybe a bit more.
None of these are easy and we regularly run into strops or tantrums but we talked about it before we set the lists up and agreed what was reasonable. I’m really hopeful that this will help them in the future and stops me losing my mind when their bedrooms are an absolute tip!!!
What do you do daily with your children?
The Busy Mommy UK 