Children Teach Us So Much
When first those two little lines or a plus sign show up on a pregnancy test we know our whole lives will change. Often we can fully picture it. Out of the wood work it seems people come to give us tips and share stories and some welcome and some not. It seems everyone wants to warn us about what we are in for. No amount of warning though can prepare new parent I am afraid because the simply fact is, our children are our teachers and each child is different.
Crunchy Parenting
As a crunchy parent we strive to parent naturally and peacefully. We try to be patient and listen to the cues our babies give us. We try to hold them and carry them as much as they need, we try to feed them when they want to be fed and not on an artificial schedule. We don’t tend to leave them in a room to cry alone at night simply because they are not on some common schedule. It seems like for a while at least our whole focus seems to be listening to our babies. Does this change when they get older?
For some it really seems to and often times I have to remind myself what my parenting goals are and I have to remind myself to work with them and not try to force them to conform to artificial social expectations. This absolutely does not mean though that my house is always clean and once it was really really really not clean when I became sick after my last baby and my husband was away for months on Army business. These tips do help though and I wanted to share them.
- Clean With Your Children. Children love to imitate, it is a biological imperative for them really. Use it to help get the house clean. Most children do not like doing things they are not really interested in on their own!
- Don’t tell your children what to clean, ask them to look around and see what needs to be done and ask them what they would like to do. If you have more than only child able to do this and they both want the same job, let them do it together rather than causing negative feelings by picking one. Then ask them to pick a second job to do together and so on.
- Less is More. Often in this day and age we have more than we need, it adds to the chaos and clutter and mess that must then be cleaned. We try not to set our children up to fail by not doing things like leaving cookies on the table before dinner. Why set ourselves up to fail with a house full of items we do not need?
- Don’t use more than one bathroom with small children. This is something I had to learn the hard way. We had let the kids use one bathroom and we used a different one. With potty training little ones, and a 5 year old at the time that didn’t like the sound of a flushing toilet…. well unless someone was in there very often one could miss a mess. So we made one bathroom spotless and all used the other. I have to say it was nice not having to clean the other bathroom as often.
- Organize! It might not sound right but children like to organize things when given the right place for things and the time to help make things organized. The first thing to do is give them the tools they need, baskets and bins and toy boxes. Then ask them how they would like to organize their toys. This might be different than the way you would do it and that is ok. Share your ideas and if they still want to do things their own way, help them do it! Ask them if they like their space after and if they do, offer to take a photo of their room and then post the photos on a wall. When it is time to clean up you can remind them of how much they love their room and let them know you have a few minutes to help them get started on making it that way again if it has gotten really out of hand.
These days our oldest daughter helps a lot. She is 13 and can fold and put away laundry, she occasionally will wash the kitchen floor, she vacuums a lot. Our 7 and 5 year old are getting better about their rooms, and enjoying being able to organize certain toys and spaces their own way. They now do dishes together without a fuss and it is wonderful as our 7 year old son is very detail oriented and it is a great chore for him. Our 5 year old has been helping with feeding and watering some of the pets and now helps go on dog walks as well. It will be many years before she can walk the dogs on her own but for right now the idea is to simply let her do what she loves!
If your home is chaos and your miserable, change something.
Never be too prideful to ask for help.
