Lots of Little Ones – part 1
I received this free email newsletter today from Large Family Logistics and thought it was helpful. It’s rather long, and I only skimmed parts, but I thought it was worth sharing and keeping somewhere.
Greetings!
A constant question for Large Family Logistics is how to handle lots of little ones. I try to reflect back and answer those emails as best as possible from my memory of those days but this last week I got to experience it first hand again.
My boys are old enough that they have lots of outdoor work and projects that keep them busy on our farm. They also work for other people on occasion. Last week my oldest girls went on a five- day trip with my parents. The boys worked away from home last week between three different jobs and their farm work here. That left me with the four youngest who are all under the age of 6. I know that there are moms out there with no big kids and six under six so this wasn’t quite the challenge that those moms are constantly exposed to, but it was remembering how to meet that old challenge for me. My big girls help me a lot and I missed them!
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This prompted me to finally start writing more than quick emails of hints and tips but more about how to live with Littles and no big kids. The last week without my big girls brought back a flood of memories! There’s a lot to say on the topic and you can look for more later in the month.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Life with Littles
How little is little? That depends on your family. If you have nobody over the age of six then your oldest children, even though in another family they would be the Littles, are the Bigs in your family. I have a friend whose oldest child is the same age as my fifth child. Her child, as the oldest, is very mature and a mother hen towards her younger siblings. My same aged child has a serve-me attitude because of her older siblings being mother hen to her. This is a failure on my part to give my daughter chores and encouraging responsibility in her life. How Little is Little depends on how you are training your Littles. Children don’t instantly become helpful when they hit a certain age, it is a result of the training process that you do when they are little. Make it fun, do it with a right attitude, as unto the Lord. As they grow, they will gradually pick up new skills and gradually be more helpful. Every six months that passes means a huge difference in the ability of a child.
A two year old can help unload the dishwasher with your encouraging help. A two year old can help you switch laundry loads and fold wash clothes. A two year old can stand at the sink with you and wash dishes, it might look more like water-play, but they are learning through watching and doing with you. Two year olds cannot stay on task long or be held responsible for regular chores. Two, three, and four year olds are in the preparatory stage for doing regular chores. They love to help do work, they love to accomplish something, they love praise, they love to do things with you. Enjoy this time of life with them, include them in your work, and teach them how to do things. Encourage them to be helpers by saying things like, “Come help me mop and give them a little mop rag.” Then thank them for their wonderful help. Say to them, “See how fast it went when we worked together?” and “Daddy will be so happy to see a clean floor and know how hard you worked to make our house clean.” “Look how clean it is!” When somebody spills something on the clean floor, teach them to handle it with grace and hand them a little wet towel to quick mop it up with a smile and not a sigh. A good attitude on the part of mom and teaching it to her children makes for a happy home.
Little children can learn to do work much more easily
if their day follows a routine. If you train them,
through doing it with them, to make their bed every
morning, it will be a work habit. They aren’t
coordinated enough to make a bed beautiful but
encourage them to do their best. Teach them, “If
you pull the sheet tight at the top, it makes a neater
line.” And “When you are done washing your face,
grab a paper towel and wipe down the counter.” Say
little phrases such as these to them every day while
you do the work together and they will learn. When
these little children and big, you will hear them
saying the same things to the next set of little
children in your home. This is your reward for
teaching your oldest children well. Little children can
learn helpful work habits and learn to do them well!
After quick making the bed, they should go to the
bathroom and wash and brush with your direction or
doing it together. They will get into the habit of
doing that little chore every day. If they are
accustomed to rising and sitting in front of Barney
then that will be their habit. Isn’t it much better for
them to rise, make their bed, dress, and do personal
grooming for their early morning routine? Little
children can do this if we are helping them to do it. It
makes life easier for everyone to be ready to face
the day right at the start rather than doing it all
after two hours of public television. I know this for a
fact. I’ve done both ways in my life as a mother. By
keeping the TV off, you add hours to your day and
enjoy your children more. So much of teaching little
children skills depends on our self-discipline to do the
task with them everyday. When little children know
that at certain times of the day, we do certain
things-including chores, then they are happier and
more helpful to the family. It becomes easier to
teach a new skill by simply adding it on to another
thing you are already doing during the daily routine.
When the little children are accustomed to routine and order and are taught basic chores and skills with your encouragement, when they are taught to obey their mother and father, then the next step of teaching them life skills becomes easy. Do you have a time of day when you read to the children? Tack on a few minutes of phonics with Alphaphonics or The Victory Drill Book, etc. While reading aloud, have the children narrate back to you a little bit at a time. Gradually increase what they narrate. Does your preschooler help set the table? Show him on paper what 5 plates plus 1 plate reads like. Do you already play outside? Get down and find a bug and then look it up and read about it. If you are overwhelmed with Littles and the thought of homeschooling, then read this article by Harvey and Lauri Bluedorn, Ten Things to do Before Age Ten. Learning is not only found in books and tests. Teach your child to teach themselves by providing them toys, activities, and experiences that foster curiosity, imagination, creativity, and a love for life and learning. This can be done with a baby, toddlers, and preschoolers before they ever enter “school age”. These are life skills that can be introduced by you, right now, in how you structure their day and the things you encourage your children to do in their day. You are not just babysitting, you are mothering. Do not think of the preschool years as merely entertaining them but as years when you can teach and train them to be Godly offspring.
Malachi 2:15
Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.
Life with Littles is a lot of physically hard work. It is a life of little mental stimulation through conversation. When my oldest children were little, it was before the internet days and I didn’t have to battle getting lost in rabbit trails. I would suggest using a timer at the computer. What I did for mental stimulation was read books. Not literature but how-to, theology, philosophy, Bible study and other books that provoked thought. Those types of books can be read one chapter at a time and then laid down to be thought about while doing work. How-to book also promote creative action. I would read about how to do something and then attempt to do it. What you put in comes out. If you put into your mind things that promote discontent, TV shows, novels, and magazines often do this, then you will reap discontent in your life. Things that should bring joy become a burden. Do not allow yourself to be discontent but look at all things with thanksgiving and challenge yourself to overcome trials with Biblical reactions. Look at the long physically hard days as a blessing. List the good things that come about through each trial and do what you can to improve each hard thing. Improve your attitude towards it, look and see how God’s Word instructs us about that particular trial, learn how to handle the situation better, try to understand what God is teaching you through it, look at the trial as a challenge to be overcome and the next time that trial or one similar comes around, you will be better equipped to handle it. As the years go by and you become stronger, things that were trials at one time become easy. God is always leading us upward and onward though and the trials of yesterday are replaced with new ones. New ones that change us and mold us into what He desires us to be. The physically hard work of this stage of life is making us strong for the future. We learn to rest in God and depend on Him for the strength we need for each day. We learn to seek Him for wisdom in how to handle all the things that wear on us. We learn to pray without ceasing and make Him our best friend in the lonely days of little adult interaction.
We reap what we sow so be sure to sow the seeds of God’s Word in our daily lives and the lives we are training. The everyday choices we make as moms affect the lives of our little children. What do you want them to remember you by?
2 Timothy 3:14-15
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
We can work on this daily with our little children. They are like sponges and can memorize easily. Add a time of day when you do memory work with your Littles. Do it after a meal or make a little circle with them on the floor and spend a few minutes reciting a verse. Another easy way to learn scripture is through song. Place into your day a time when you listen to scripture music. This can be when you are folding laundry together or washing dishes. Sing along with it while you work. Little children can learn hymns. Hymns are rich stories of the Christian faith that will help your children throughout their lives. Choose a time of day when you practice singing a hymn and teach them great truths of God in this easy way.
Now you ask, how am to add all these things into the day when already I can’t get anything done? Do you currently have a plan? If no, that’s your problem. Without a plan for the day you are aiming at nothing and hitting it everyday. If you have a plan that’s not working, then your plan needs modified. There are times in life that certain things do not fit in and must be let go for a season. What are the most important priorities to your Christian family? These are the things that must be emphasized on your daily plan. Examine your days and see how the different things that must happen can be made more efficient, more streamlined, and better organized. A very successful way of examining your day is by writing down every single little thing that you and the children do from the moment of rising until you fall asleep at night. It is an inconvenience to do this but it will help you become better at managing your home in the long run. What this exercise will do is expose areas of the day when you and the children are wandering aimlessly. I’m not saying that there is no place for wandering aimlessly but let’s do it in the yard on a lazy summer afternoon, not while going about the daily routine of life with Littles. Efficiency sometimes gets a bad rap in the creative crowd but what being efficient does in its proper place is allow you more time for creative endeavors. Sometimes being efficient in this stag of life means letting some things go. Paper plates, paper napkins and plastic silverware might be the answer for a season. Hiring or bartering for a cleaning service. Teaming up with another mom for project days is another way to increase your efficiency. Staying home instead of being on the go, go, go improves efficiency and contributes greatly to a healthy and happy home life. Children thrive on consistency. When they don’t know what to expect and/or when to expect what they don’t know to expect they get overloaded with stimulus and their behavior becomes belligerent. There is a place for going out and experiencing new things with the children but try to make it the exception to the at- home life and a small part of the daily and weekly routine.
Is the tyranny of the urgent ruining your days? Try to identify what the tyrant is so that you can manage it better. Sometimes it is an especially needy child. What can you do to meet this child’s needs better? The needs for sleep and food are typical culprits for irritable Littles. Or does this child need to simply learn respect and obedience? Identify the need and address it. Sometimes the tyrant is a time of day. Does your lunch need to be earlier? Are you waiting too long before having nap time? Do you need a snack time scheduled to the clock? Is there a part of the house (bedrooms, playroom, bathroom, kitchen) that is a problem? Spend a day or two studying it and thinking about what would make it more pleasing to your home life. Interruptions are part of life with other people, especially children but try to minimize them through being proactive and act with wisdom so that you are not tyrannized by them.
Less is more with Littles. They do not need every toy under the sun. What will be most helpful to them and you are open-ended imaginative toys and activities. Aim for classic toys that will stand up to use and be passed down through all of your children. These teach their brains to grow and think. Minimize the sheer amount by de-cluttering the toys that don’t get played with, the flashy, noisy toys that give you a headache (mom doesn’t need that!), and of course all toys with missing pieces or are broken. Place an assortment in storage and rotate them by week, month, or season to further pare down the volume. Keep the remaining toys in a way that the children know where they are kept and can put them away when told with ease. Teach them, “Everything has a place and everything in its place.” You will need to help them put away their toys to train them how to do it and to train them in work. They were born with a sin nature just like me and you, as parents we need to help them learn self-discipline and a work ethic. It starts with teaching the littlest ones to put away their toys. What you will see happen with less toys and higher quality is that they will play longer and with more imagination as their brain grows and stretches. Instead of a toy being interesting for ten minutes and laid aside, they will play with it for hours or days in untold ways.
Toys for little ones should be kept near to where you are working. Then you can keep on top of mishandling and disagreements. Toys in bedrooms contribute to disastrous bedrooms. Keep the bedroom chores to the minimum of making the bed and clothing storage and it will be far easier on you and them. Before lunch and naptime hold a pick-up session. Sing a silly song about picking up toys and make it fun and quick. Once again, have a pick-up time before Dad comes home so that he doesn’t walk into a mess. You know that it’s a quick pick-up and not near the disaster that it appears but it’s not pleasing to the eye of a dad who just want to rest and recover from a hard day’s work. If the toys come out again before bedtime, have another pick-up before the bedtime routine. Pick-up times should be able to happen in ten minutes or less. If it takes longer than that, then it’s time to have another de- clutter session or box up more for the toy rotation. If a child has an especially interesting toy project that he doesn’t want disturbed then be kind and respectful and store it out of the way or pick-up everything but that spot where his project is.
Part two coming later in the month, Lord willing.
