Monday, July 21, 2014

Our top ten ways we feel like we are at least doing SOMETHING right...

When it comes to perfect parenting, the Holt family will most likely never be discussed unless its in regards of "what not to do".  Nevertheless, we have felt the slightest bit of accomplishment with a few small adjustments in our home.  Here's our top ten:

10.  Family prayers.  Confession that we only do nightly prayers with kids and dada leaving at all different times each morning but we are pretty diligent in our nightly prayers.  Each family member has a specific night that is theirs to say the prayer.  They are also asked to read a scripture. With 6 of us in the family and 7 nights a week mom and dad usually end up saying the 7th night.

9. Vacations.  We love to vacation and have realized it is a priority to us.  First we started a vacation jar, which is great and still in use but doesn't cover the amount of vacations we prefer to take anymore.  It basically is a change jar that loose bills and change get put into as often as we find them.  If Mat just happens to leave a lot of cash in his pants and it comes through the wash that's a vacation jar bonus!  The jar also serves as a cash reserve with smaller bills in case of a power outage or emergency that we need cash for as we use our debit cards 95% of the time.  

8. More Vacations.  To combat our love of vacations and our less then lucrative vacation jar we've instilled the envelope system.  We have an envelope for couples vacations, family vacations, and when our kids turn 12 mom and dad take them on vacation so they get and envelope too.  Each month Mat will add cash to each envelope with the idea that each vacation we are saving for will be fully funded by the time it comes.

7. Envelopes for everything.  We have liked the envelopes so much that there is almost an envelope for everything you could think of.  All of our bills are paid online each month and we have a set amount for food and necessities that gets deposited into my account and everything else belongs to the envelopes.  We have one for home updating, clothes, Christmas (Mat's favorite), etc.  We even have an envelope for just Mat and one for just me that we can either save up for something we want or spend each month but we can spend it on anything we want without getting any grief from each other.

6. Chores. Of course with 4 fairly involved kiddos we have our work cut out in the chore department.  To save us grief we have chores that rotate each month for the three older while our youngest gets a little easier one.  We rotate trash duty, every trash in the house needs to be emptied by this child every time it's full.  Usually the day before trash pickup they empty every trash as well.  We rotate laundry.  I wash and fold all of the laundry but twice a week one child goes and gathers the dirty clothes and once they are folded the same child puts them away.  We also rotate dishes.  The rule is that you put your dirty dishes in the dishwasher so the main chore is that the clean dishes are always put away.  If the dishwasher is neglected when their clean then the child has to load any that accumulate that are dirty.
 Each child is expected (expected because realistically they're done once a week) to keep their room and bathrooms clean before going out to play.  

5. Dinner.  I like to cook but coming up with ideas every night is overwhelming.  This doesn't work great during the summer as everything mealtime is a crap shoot but winter months it's a life saver.  On Sunday each family member chooses a meal they would like that week.  It can't be something we had the week prior and it has to be reasonable.  So we basically have a weekly menu which helps cut costs on groceries.  If it's that family member's night to say prayers then it's also their night to clean up dinner. 

4.  Reading, writing, and everything else they whine about doing.  Each child is expected to read 20 minutes each day before they can play.  Each child usually has another activity that we ask that they work on to improve for an additional 20 minutes. 

3.  Gratitude jar.  We just began this after a Sunday school lesson on gratitude but it is working so far.  Each night as we kneel down for prayers each family member writes something they are grateful for on a slip of paper and puts it into a jar.  At the end of the year we plan to make a wordle of all of our blessings.

2. The phones and electronics.  Each kid is required to turn in their phones or electronics each night.  Before accessing them in the morning they must meet certain requirements.  Our oldest must read her scriptures a certain amount each day.  Our younger kids must complete their everyday tasks and depending on how much time they've spent the day before they will have to do some sort of an extra chore to have use of them.  The ipads are all password protected so Mat and I are the only ones that can access them.  If our younger kids are wanting to get on them typically they will find a chore as in straightening up the kitchen or family room and THEN ask if they can play them.  It's amazing!

Our number 1 favorite thing....

1.  No electronic Sunday.  This means no cell phones, no tv, no iPads etc.  Heaven forbid these kids have been forced to interact with their family members one day a week and while it took a while to get into the groove they seem to actually ENJOY spending time as a family.  They are allowed electronic access if they are doing something gospel related.  They are more than welcome to index, listen to church music, watch church movies, etc.  We have allowed on small catch to accessing electronics on Sunday. We have church at 9:00am which can be a challenge to get them all ready.  If they are ready and in the car by 8:45am they are allowed one hour of electronic time during a designated hour.  So if we're coming in late you can pretty much guess it's mom running behind as that hour is like gold to the kids.

There you have it. Right or wrong these are the top things that have us functioning almost like a normal family day to day.  No they don't always work like clockwork but when they do life is that much easier.



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