precious time
Summer is going full speed ahead. Dreams about doing nothing in the summer, spending all the time in the world with our kids, reading to them, going places - sound usually like New Years Resolutions... After a day at work I come home and I close my eyes to mess, to dishes. I am so happy to see my kids, they are running to meet me, happy that I'm home, telling me what they did during the day and how much fun they had.
Everything in the last sentence except for both "happy" is a lie!
Seeing the mess, I make the kids drop everything they did and clean. It takes so much energy to fight after stressful day. Though I know we should pick our battles, it is not easy to follow this golden advice in reality:)
It always seemed to me that when time is precious, best way to use it is for something worthwhile. Of course, it's important to teach the kids life skills, including cleaning of the house...Still, I found that just like I remember the way my parents were with us kids rather than what was around us, so my kids will likely remember us, the parents. So having written this for the blog, I hope it will help me too :) to spend more quality time with my kids.
As for cleaning, we'll learn it as a family activity!
5 comments:
Marika, don't you think we were much better than our kids in cleaning, folding, organizing, keeping everything in the right place, etc.? You are right that when the time if precious its a waste to spend it on cleaning:-) But for our parents the time was likely as precious as it is now for us. Yet... Well, may be our kids will get it when they will grow up........
Cleaning the mess arround helps to bring the mind in order too. It is hard to focus when the environment arround is hoatic. And, yes, it is an activity that we can/should joyfully do together with children and then selebrate the result in some symbolic way. Mess at home contributes to mess in the world in a subtle way too. And as always personal example is the key. If they see that we enjoy cleaning they will percive it as a joyfull activity.
But we can't fake it. So we have to examne ourselfs first before demanding anything from them.
Wholeheartedly agree about personal example and examining ourselves first. Still, too many times I find myself patiently "setting examples", cleaning, cleaning, cleaning with no notice or help from people, or should I say children and teens who live with me:)
While I strongly prefer to "pick my battles" in matters of fighting material mess, it's hard to stay peaceful and not feel resentment here.
Marika, looks like you and I do not enjoy cleaning enough, so we can not trick our kids to consider it as a joyful activity:-)
However, an example of kid's friends in doing the same activity makes a big difference in cleanness of my kids side of the house!
and this is especially puzzling, because my kids see me sweeping the floor or starting up roomba/scooba every other day, with a happy whistle, and boy, do I marvel in a clean floor later - have to admit, it's the one thing i keep up with, for selfish reasons i guess, the clean smooth floor is such a pleasure to walk on barefoot...
lately, my constant grumblings about taking care of what one owns gave a speck of result: for the past week i asked and i got! Well, there were certain politics involved though:)))
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