How to manage your family time to make all members happy?

You are approaching 40, having a bunch of children, even more responsibilities, but every morning you want to shout - "I'm not ready to be an adult." Every day the same thing - you barely cover your eye with a huge burden of tasks and work. I am not talking about the work related to the profession - this is a different opera. I reflect on all household chores that make my monotony and inaccessibility. A familiar feeling? Don't be afraid you are not alone. But I know how to fix it. I tried it myself

When we feel like the load is unevenly distributed on us, many of us become frustrated and overwhelmed with our lists, our homes, and ultimately those we love.

Often, the actual list of chores is not too difficult to complete (especially if the work is shared), but the mental load of it can be challenging. Who remembers when the laundry needs to be loaded, when the dishwasher filter needs to be changed, or when the sheets were last washed? Typically, the no one, because you leave it to resolve itself .

We may not be able to control how frequently our children demand that we make them a sandwich (if they're like ours, that's about bilion times per day), but we can control how we organize our household tasks/family chores in a way that allows us to focus on what needs to be done and reduces the overwhelm of all the things that could be done.

The strategy

My suggested way of thinking and acting aims for the two things:

Assist you in communicating what needs to be done (and what you can pass along to others)

Assist you in comprehending what you do and what you must do (and when)

Hopefully, all of this will be done in a way that is simple to understand and track, so that you have less on your mind throughout the day.

Participants of the project

Things that are imposed on others usually repel them. But when working in a team, when everyone feels a part of themselves and sees themselves as co-authors of the project, the motivation to implement it significantly increases.

This is how we do

We sit on our colorful carpet, cut out papers, and talk about what people do all day and what work we can do to reach our goal.

The objective

This is a critical point. In our family, we have agreed that if Progress Bar reaches our scheduled phase by the end of the week, we will all go to the water park, have a family pizza night, do a donut tasting, or do an alpaca photo session at the nearest farm of these beasts.

The progress bar

It is very important for our kids to have a visual expression of our tasks' progress. They just do not believe "we are almost there." It's like traveling by car and constantly answering the question, "Are we yet there?" That is why I started looking for a way to express the progress and found it in the old, good Excel.

From now on, every Sunday, we gather and split the tasks of the week among all the members of the family, and believe it or not, only the first week of this habit faces gentle rejection. On second Sunday, kids start to ask to click on the checkbox and mark their tasks as completed just to witness how the progress bar gets closer to the objective.

Chores for kids

You might be scared to delegate chores to kids or think they are too young to do things. I've been there too, but I realized that if other kids can help with everyday tasks, mine can too. Did you know that:

2-3 year olds can:

Pick up toys, Wipe up dust, Clear place at the meal time, Help take out groceries, Sort garbage

4-6 year olds can:

Make their bed, Sort laundry, Feed pets, Make a simple snack, Set the table, Water plants

7-9 year olds can:

Make their own school lunch, Fold laundry, Cook simple foods, Load and unload dishwasher, Vacuum

10+ year olds can:

Operate the washer and dryer, Mow the lawn, Help with family budgeting (especially him or herself), Wash the car, Have a small job to earn (i.e. create t shirts )

It has been scientifically proven that kids who do chores at a young age have a higher rate of professional success as adults. There is less stress in a clean and tidy household where everyone contributes. When the kids happily help out, parents have more time and less stress, which means more family time for everyone.

Of course, at first it seemed to me that giving chores to my kids was like exploitation, but I thought it through and realized that good examples go viral for kids because parents doing chores at home can have both positive and negative effects on children, depending on how it is done and the context in which it occurs.

Basically, the negative effects of our parents examples made us create that task distribution strategy. We were always afraid of reinforcing gender stereotypes. For instance, If one parent is always responsible for specific chores such as cooking, cleaning, and laundry, children may develop gender stereotypes that limit their perception of what household tasks are appropriate for different genders.

Other treat - creating resentment: If parents do not distribute household chores fairly, it can create resentment among family members, particularly if one person feels overburdened with tasks.

Creating stress: If parents argue or fight over household chores, it can create a stressful and uncomfortable environment for children.

Overall, it is important for parents to model responsible and fair behavior when it comes to household chores, involving their children in age-appropriate tasks, and ensuring that the workload is distributed equitably.

So by setting the weekly strategy, you not only have to take the fun part into account, but also think about the roles and if they match the right age of your kids.