What's Working, What's Not

Every so often I stop and take inventory. What’s working for our family and what’s not? Are we committed to some things that aren’t supporting our family goals and are stressing us out? Are there some things we should say no to? Some things to say yes to? Where do we need help? What isn’t working and how can we fix it?

Being able to answer these questions requires some kind of framework, a family mission statement if you will. Here’s ours:

“Our family seeks to glorify the Lord, and to reflect His great love for us in all we say and do. To that end, we seek to promote an atmosphere of peace and hospitality for all who live in our home and for all who enter it. Our relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ, our marriage, our relationships with our children, and our children’s relationships with each other are a priority.
We want to spread the Good News of Jesus in our neighborhood and around the world. We endeavor to be life-long learners as God is always refining us and molding us into the image of His Son Jesus.”

My recent inventory was a stream of consciousness jotted down on a Word document, and it looked something like this (I did this just before we started school last month):

What’s working:
Bible time
Devotion time
Chapter books – fairly well

What’s not working:
Sibling bickering
Instant obedience
Getting through the head to the heart
School is starting and I have too much on my plate – need to let some things go

What would help:
Add teatime (downtime, poetry read-aloud, memorization)
Buy small vacuum
Hire housekeeper
Figure out grocery plan/delivery/pick up
Shift some responsibility to children

Hospitality and friendship goals – once per month:
Date night
Babysitting swap with friends
Each child gets extended one on one time with Mama or Daddy
Have guests for dinner (two times per month)
Meet with Jacob’s birth mother
Me – night out with girl friends
The Gent – breakfast or lunch with friend, not work related

To flush it out a little . . .

What’s working. The children and I have Bible time (read from a children’s Bible, catechism, sing a hymn together) each morning after breakfast. We have been doing this since Annie and Jacob were two and it works well for our schedule and helps get our day off on a good note. We read through a children’s devotional book as a family each night at the end of dinner. Before rest time each afternoon, the children and I read their chapter books. (The Gent does this on weekends.) We usually have two books going—their literature book for school, and a fun or classic children’s book (Little House in the Big Woods, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Prince Caspian, etc).

What’s not working. My children had been fighting A LOT. I’m sure your kids never do this. ;) I have been providing a little more instruction—often, finding a particular child a task or game to do—and repeating over and over “blessed are the peacemakers!” This helps but we still need work. Instant obedience . . . in my opinion, this is more of a parenting failure. I call it “get off your butt parenting.” Following through consistently is hard work on parents . . . but my kids need to know that I mean what I say. So I am working on it. Getting through the head to the heart. This is a hard one. I don’t want my kids to just “be nice” and “be kind.” Because if moralism is all I’m teaching I’m failing. I want my kids to be kind and show love to each other because Jesus loved us so much that He gave His life for us and we want to reflect His light in what we do and say. I re-read Give Them Grace for inspiration.

With school getting ready to start, I realized I had too much on my plate. I love being superwoman and I’ll admit there’s some pride involved in doing it all myself. I LIKE to do it all myself. However, there just weren’t enough hours in the day. So I bought a cordless vacuum for quick clean up jobs and hired a housekeeper to come every two weeks. I’m getting used to the idea of paying someone else to do what I see as “my job.” I’m also trying to simplify my grocery/household shopping. I still love Aldi, but I’m supplementing that with the occasional Shipt delivery and Amazon Pantry order. Still figuring this part out. I’ve also shifted some responsibilities to my children. I started this in the middle of the summer when I was FED UP with them always under my feet in the kitchen. I realized they wanted to learn to cook and genuinely wanted to help me. So I assigned each child a meal to be my “helper” (breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner). I change it each week so each child gets to learn a few new cooking skills, practices setting the table, etc. Also, Annie is responsible for getting the mail, Jacob empties the trash, Sophie feeds Huck breakfast, and Nora feeds him dinner. Each child makes their own bed, gets dressed, cleans up their toys, carries their dishes to the kitchen, and helps put away their folded laundry (Nora still needs help with these things).

I wanted to provide a little reconnection time after our afternoon rest, so I instituted tea time. My children LOVE THIS. We gather around the table with a small snack and a cup of tea. They drink theirs from espresso cups and I read them poetry and it is such a precious 15 minutes together! Often in parenting you don’t get these sweet moments and I am so thankful for our afternoon teas.

I think the rest is pretty self-explanatory. A sweet friend and I started a babysitting swap about three years ago and it has been a lifesaver. One night a month she comes to my house and babysits my kids so the Gent and I get a date night. And one night a month I babysit for her munchkins and she and her husband get a night out. It’s awesome.

So go take inventory of your life. Keep making it better. Maybe you’ll hit on your own version of tea time!