Getting Your Children Involved: Doing the Dishes!

Get your children involved, they will love it and so will you!

Join me as I start a new series about getting your children involved as you do your chores around the house.  My kiddos are little, ages 2 and 3, so my advice is specific to their ages, but you mothers of older children, I hope, can also benefit from these ideas, you may just end up using them as a starting point for knowing what your older kids are capable of helping out with around the house. 

I have little one’s under foot right now who love the chance to help!  They think it is so great and even a treat to dry dishes, fold socks or get out a new trash bag to put in the trash can.  I want to encourage you moms to take advantage of this opportunity while they enjoy helping out to begin to create and build good habits of service for the future. 

So often I want to do things around the house my way, and I want a job to just get done, but then as I’m going about my cleaning the kids start getting in the way, they start playing with the vacuum or fighting to get my attention, even undoing what had just been put away or cleaned.  This leads to me getting frustrated with them and sometimes not even getting done what I had hoped to.  The cycle is vicious but it can be avoided by getting your kids involved in what you’re doing!

Little one’s are very capable of doing many tasks around the house.  Give them a job and have them work at it.  If their attention span is short give them multiple little tasks that don’t take much time, although I would suggest just giving one task at a time otherwise they are likely to not remember a list.  Ask yourself what is more important, having a perfect house and everything done just exactly how you want it to be done at whatever cost or getting your children involved and teaching them to be servants, even if the job may not get done perfectly, as quickly or exactly how you would have done it. 

Take time to teach them each task, this will help them learn how to do a new job and learn how you expect it to be done.  Remember, this is a process, they’re learning, and you may need to repeat the teaching process a few times.  It may not get done exactly to your liking but we want to encourage them to try and in the process they learn how to listen to instruction, they learn how to do a task, and they learn how to serve their family.

Get your kids involved: Doing the dishes!

My little 2 and 3 year old love to help dry the dishes.  When we were in our house they would help us unload the dishwasher, now that we’re in the camper they help dry the dishes as I wash them.  You could even chose to have them wash the dishes!  I appreciate this so much, their willing little hearts to serve, and it helps me get the dishes done faster!  I get them each a drying rag and they get to work drying the dishes and stacking them on the counter for me to put away and the items, such a silverware, that they can reach to put away, they do. 

You may need to set some guidelines according to your family and children.  Right now our dishware is mostly plastic while we’re in the camper so they are safe to dry it.  While we were in our house using our regular dishware they had limitations on what they were allowed to help get out of the dishwasher such as knives and large glass serving bowls were off limits.  Along the way we have had a couple broken dishes, but we chose to use it as a moment to teach our children and have them learn the importance of being careful and using two hands, being aware of what they’re doing.  Dishes are replaceable!  Don’t miss the moments and time that you can spend with your children and teach them valuable life lessons, especially while they're young and they think it’s a treat!

PRAISE your children!

Praise your children ten times more than you correct them!

What a great reminder that I have been in need of.  We’re living in a camper this summer as we build our home and I feel like everything has been out of sorts.  I am normally very organized and enjoy being on a schedule but since we’ve been building, which started in May, all of that was thrown out the window.  It feels like nothing is organized and we are definitely not on any schedule, we really can’t be as each day is different with what needs to be done on the house. 

I work better in a clean, organized and scheduled environment.  I feel more relaxed and at ease.  But life is not always as I would like it to be and that should not dictate how I act as a wife or mother, how I raise and instruct my children.  But sadly, I have to admit, that my attitude and outlook has not remained the same throughout this summer.  I have began to slack in teaching and training my children, my temper has grown short and there have been many days that I just hope to get through the day.  This has reflected in my children, how they act and treat one another; they are seeing me and learning from me, the good and the bad.  Sadly, it’s probably been more bad than good lately. 

Prior to moving into the camper and building, our family was purposing to praise our children 10 times more than we correct them.  I believe this goes against our nature.  It’s easy to see when someone is doing something wrong and to call them out on it.  In dealing with our childrens behavior, it’s much the same, we see the things they are doing wrong, their actions that are unkind, their words that are mean and we are quick to correct them.  But it’s easy to let the gentle words and kind action go completely unnoticed.  We thrive under praise, even as adults.  As our children are learning and growing we need to constantly praise their good behavior, this will help them desire to do the right thing and become the person they should be. 

Children are born into a sinful nature and we need to teach them to put off ungodly behavior and put on godly character.  If we’re going to do this then we need to know what godly character is.  The Duggar’s have a great character quality chart with definitions, you can check out the chart here.  We as parents need to know and understand good character qualities first so we can see them and specifically praise our children when we see them doing what’s good and right.  When we see one of our children cleaning up their toys we can say, “What a great job, child’s name, you are being so diligent in cleaning up your toys.  Thank you!” or “Thank you for taking out the trash without even being asked. I’m so encouraged by your initiative. You saw what needed to be done and just did it! You encourage me to have more of a servant’s heart.”  To go beyond just simply saying ‘good job’ but speaking the character qualities so our children learn and understand what it is that they are doing takes purpose but it is vital and will make and incredible difference in your childrens lives and in your own! 

My encouragement to myself and to you is to purpose to learn the character qualities and purpose to teach them to your children and PRAISE your children when you see them carrying them out.  What a blessing this will be in your families lives as you begin to learn as well to put off the old man and put on the new man.  (Colossians 3)