• Life as Mom - Life in General

    We Are Family: Child Chore Training, Pt. 3

    Welcome to the final installment (for now) in this series on Child Chore Training! Last week I gave specific examples of what this currently looks like in our home. Today I want to share how and why we pay our children for doing chores. I guess we should start with why we chose to pay our son for his chores every week. First, we decided at age six he was ready to begin learning some basic money management skills. We want him to grow up with an understanding of how much things cost, how long it takes to earn enough…

  • Life in General - Uncategorized

    Open Hands: Releasing Control of What Is Not My Own

    We had a house showing today. I am not sure how many we have had now, but every time it stresses me out so much. Today was no different. I cleaned most everything yesterday because I knew we would be out of the house this morning for prior commitments and would only have time and energy for vacuuming and final tidying in the afternoon. Still, the whole day I was on edge. I snapped at the kids for stupid little things. I felt discouraged and frustrated. I complained to God about how long this process is taking and grumbled about…

  • Life as Mom - Life in General - Uncategorized

    We Are Family: Child Chore Training, Pt. 1

    Before my husband and I had children, I worked in a private fine arts preschool. The school used several different methods from a variety of early childhood education philosophies, one of which was the Montessori method. The children were taught from the day they started at our preschool how to take care of several self-care and classroom needs, like tidying up after their own messes and helping with classroom chores. Even though the children did not always do a very good job of sweeping up crumbs or wiping up spills, they were learning and being trained in these important habits.…