The Lighting of a Fire!: Part Twenty-Six

A few years after we began homeschooling I heard the story of a family who homeschooled their children while they homesteaded a farm in northern California. This family was held up as a “you-can-homeschool-too” family, because their homeschooled son had been accepted to Harvard. Recently I learned that at the time the national headlines read "Goat-Boy Goes to Harvard." The part of this story that caught my attention all those years ago was the goal of the family when they set out to farm--they wanted to teach their children how to work hard. From the story I heard, the parents decided that if their children knew how to work hard, then college wouldn’t be overly difficult even if that college were Harvard. (Here's their story: Homeschoolers at Home at Harvard)

“Work brings happiness, self-esteem, and prosperity. It is the means of all accomplishment; it is the opposite of idleness.”

My parents taught me how to work hard, and I planned to pass this on to my children. As a homeschooling mother if I wanted a clean house it was a necessity to teach my children to work--from laundry, to floors, to cooking, to painting a room. They also needed to know how to do outside work as well planting and tending the vegetable garden, pruning bushes and fruit trees, mowing and edging the lawn, and fixing the sprinklers.

Giselle weeds her vegetable patch--

From a very young age I taught my children learned how to work, which made the transition to homeschool fairly easy, since I wasn't the only one keeping up the house.

Our children grew up with lots of chore charts so that they could learn to boss themselves. I made many charts through the years. I also bought poster board lined charts that we used with tiny, round stickers.

Here is one of the only charts I still have that shows a little bit of what I did to get my kids excited about working!

Chase's chart--"Help Prince Chase reach the castle"

I used Karen's Once Upon a Time clip art (it was in books back then), and put this together and water-colored and then laminated it. Each square had a little piece of Velcro, and this guy was also laminated and Velcroed, so that Chase could help him climb up to the castle.

I remember that Autumn Heather had a similar chart, though it was pink and princess-y, but used Karen's clip art as well!

Looking at the chart now I laugh at how I used such a fancy font, (Karen's font), for little kids. Chase's chart reads, from the bottom up: bed, dressed, devotional room, stewardship, breakfast, kitchen, teeth, deputy, piano, Huzzah!

Years later I created computer generated charts, including thematic charts to go with the school year. These were so easy to use because the kids could print out their charts each week

From Heroes: A Rendez-vous with Destiny, our WWII school year--

From From Sea to Shining Sea, the American Girl school year

STEWARDSHIPS

The idea of having a stewardship—a responsibility that is all one's own, came from Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families. Though I never implemented his idea completely, I liked the idea of a child being a steward of something, rather than just doing a job.

Hal IV cleans the bathroom--

Each child was given a stewardship for a period of time—usually one to three months, depending on who was clamoring to have that stewardship, or if a child grew out of the stewardship he already had. Two and three year olds emptied wastebaskets every day. Older children did laundry for the family.

KITCHEN

When the children were little we all helped clean up together. Then they were given a specific kitchen job, like emptying the dishwasher or washing the stove and counters. When the kids got older they decided that they wanted to do something Uncle Jeff’s family did—each child took an entire day. For the most part we all pitched in for breakfast and lunch, but the person who was in charge for that day made sure the kitchen was all clean after dinner.

If something came up and that child wouldn’t be home for dinner, it was his responsibility to either trade days with another child or make other arrangements, like bribe or pay someone to do his day in the kitchen. At first the older kids took two days a week, but as the younger ones grew up, there were enough children for each day of the week, with Mom and Dad doing Sunday dishes. When the kids began moving away, the ones at home had to double up again.

Amber loads the dishwasher--

DEPUTY JOBS

My mother used to tell me that there was a difference between having a messy house and a dirty house. While my children were growing up we had a clean house with messes that were almost always picked up before Dad came home.

When the kids were little and there were toy and other messes, I used to say, "everyone pick up 10 things," or "everyone put away 15 things." Messes were picked up pretty quickly because we all pitched in. Over time, with a houseful of six children, I decided to put them in charge of one area each.

One day I came out to the family room sporting a cowboy hat and yellow-construction-paper sheriff badge. I told the kids something about me being the sheriff of our house. I was in charge of it and making sure all was in order. I pulled out a deputy star for each child and duly made them my deputies. They were given responsibilities over certain areas of the house: dining room, family room, living room, etc. Each deputy was to make sure his area was cleaned up at the end of our school day and at other times when the sheriff said, "everyone do your deputy jobs!"

Sometimes items were confiscated if they were left in another person's deputy's area, which was the consequence of leaving your things lying around.

Autumn Heather cleaning the kitchen--

FAMILY MEETING

We usually discussed family business at Family Home Evening, including concerns about stewardships and deputy jobs. The kids would voice concerns or file complaints at this time. This was also the time we would change stewardships, kitchen jobs and deputy jobs.

I recently found a hand-written paper that outlined some of these decisions. It looks like Amber was the scribe for this family meeting. (I’m so glad I found this, and wish I had some from other years. I may be the only one who cares about this too!)

I put everything down exactly as she wrote it in blue, with explanations or questions in red --

LAWS

Talking on the phone

· write it down [if you answer the phone, write down the message]

· Wait until Mom is finished [if she is talking on the phone, don't interrupt]

Kids --

· Charts done by 8am

· No eating until charts are done

o Devotional

o Room

o Bed

o Personal grooming

o Deputy

o Stewardship

Girls—U.S. [I think she means she and Jasmyn, as they were probably the only ones old enough to go places other than friends' homes.]

· Charts done before going places/TV, computer

Kitchen—[I’m not sure what the ‘D’ and ‘E’ stand for, but possibly 'Dishwasher', as in 'load dishwashe' and 'Empty Dishwasher' ? The big kitchen duties are divided up among Amber, Jasmyn, and Hal, with Mom and Dad doing Sunday, and Chase and Heather doing the other duties below.]

MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN

D- J A H J A H M

E- A H J A H J D

Chase/Heather clear and wash table and chairs

Eat between meals/late—do your own [do your own dishes]

Jasmyn sings into her microphone while cleaning the kitchen--

Stewardships—

[It looks like Heather only has kitchen duties, and Chase is still emptying the wastebaskets, but he also takes out the compost, so my guess is that this is around 1995-1996]

WASH VACUUM BATHROOMS GARBAGE/COMPOST

Jasmyn Amber Hal Chase

not done right

· Redo

· Extra job

Deputy--

If you leave your stuff out in someone’s deputy—the next day you have to do their deputy for the whole day.

Mercy – [this was pretty funny, but I'm not sure what it really means, except--if you don't do your stuff then you have to beg for mercy from the parents and hope for the best!]

· Explain to Mom

· Dad as witness

YARD

There is so much to say about this that I have decided to put it in a separate post, except to say that working in the yard was an important part of learning how to work at our house.

YOUNGER SIBLINGS

Amber and Jasmyn had the wonderful opportunity to help take care of their younger siblings a lot. I never had that opportunity growing up and the younger children didn't either, but all the children, except Giselle were given the chance the serve the younger ones.

From holding babies and changing diapers--

Hal IV holds Autumn Heather

to helping them get dressed--

Amber puts shoes on Giselle

and putting them to sleep--

Amber and Chase

Jasmyn sleeps with Autumn Heather in her tiny crib bed

to doing little sisters' hair--

Autumn Heather in curlers

to taking them on outings--

Jasmyn and Giselle at Disneyland

to playing games and keeping them entertained--

an older sibling and Giselle

Chase plays chess with Autumn Heather

Chase watches out for Giselle at a play place [with cousin Andrew]

to driving them to lessons, seminary, mutual, the mall, etc., these and so much more give siblings the opportunity to serve each other. A mother can't do everything, and that is a great blessing for the children who serve and who are served.

Fortunately for the younger siblings, they became aunts and uncles early enough in life to be able to have the opportunity to play with and take care of their nieces and nephews--

Chase holds Hannah

Autumn Heather holds Paige

Giselle holds Tyler

We didn't homestead a farm, but we did teach our children how to work and we even created work for our children, as counseled by President Kimball:

"We want you parents to create work for your children. Insist on them learning their lessons in school. Do not let them play all the time. There is a time for play, there is a time to work, and there is a time to study."

Amber cooking

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

Benjamin Franklin