A Delightful Journey: New Attitudes with Chores

In my previous post I talked about how I wrongly related with cleaning our home. Having a clean home is a good thing, but the way we approach it can be unloving and burdensome. I want to have God’s standards in all areas of my life and am in the journey of learning what God’s standards are. He is currently teaching me quite a bit about His standards towards keeping our home tidy and clean.

Now to continue on from my first post on chore charts… The morning after Dan and I talked to the kids, releasing them from the burden of chore charts, Alina and Daniel were actively moving about and tidying up after themselves with a joyful spirit. They were working together with concern for each other along with loving attitudes. This is something the chore charts did not produce. Tiana’s attitude was pleasant or really neutral on the outside, yet she wasn’t really being productive and needed several reminders to do her part. Sereina’s attitude remained the same as she put some effort towards our new plan. She mainly resisted by doing the minimum of what was expected and also needed several reminders. I had taught Tiana and Sereina the fleshly art of resisting quite well.

What was surprising to me was the attitudes in me… my resistance turned into a sense of freedom. Being released of the chore charts these past few weeks brought a sense of freedom to Alina, Daniel and myself. I could see that my two older girls would need specific attention and training from me. The condition of their hearts were being revealed, they were not all that interested in serving others in their home or doing what was expected, let alone doing more than was expected in their home. They were holding on to self centered attitudes and resisting developing loving attitudes and behaviors. I could see that a heart level teaching needed to take place… starting with me.

As we began this new program with no more chore charts I came to see my need to be more focused and paying attention to what my children were doing throughout the day and not being distracted with other things. I got several opportunities to give all my children reminders with a loving attitude. I got to practice keeping them on task, not allowing them to put things off, talking to them about putting forth purposeful effort (the opposite of habitually forgetting this or that), talking to them about looking for opportunities to do extra… all with a loving spirit. As I pressed forward with them I could see my own flesh, how I had been the model from which they learned procrastination. It was as if the Lord put a mirror in front of me and I could see it all clearly. I could see that there were areas in my life that I would put off and not put purposeful effort into. I could see that I could not expect my children to put forth purposeful effort while I was not. I needed to repent and begin to put purposeful effort toward various areas of my life into action.

One day, a week or so into this, I noticed that several things had been left undone, so I called the kids together to talk about it. I intended to discuss what was left undone as that has been my habit, however, when the kids sat down I was led to instead ask them how they thought things were going. I was HUGELY… IMENSLY blessed.

One of the kids identified that the house had been in better shape since we stopped using chore charts and I could not disagree with that at all. Daniel and Alina began talking about how they enjoyed being able to share in the chores and helping each other with the tasks. Daniel told me that he feels like he is getting to know his sister so much better. Deep heart level relationships IS what I am after. They feel less burdened and feel like they can ask each other for help more and are finding themselves more willing to give help. No more saying, “that’s not my job” because they aren’t assigned to specific jobs. Our focus is no longer on the chore charts, but on our attitudes and how we treat each other as we work together to produce a cleaner home. Our focus is on how we love each other.

Each child is expected to manage specific areas and is expected to request help in a loving manner from any of their siblings in order to get the job done. This means a child may do dishes several days in a row or not, we are no longer keeping score. Tiana said that when this first started she did not want to help with the dishes when she was asked, seemingly out of the blue, to help. Because she thought she would get into trouble, she chose to do the job anyway. She told me that she no longer feels that way and now is happy to help.

Being that my discussion did not open up with talking to them about the problems, my children opened up to a more productive discussion than ever before. Instead of pointing out what was not being done, I asked them how things can continue to improve. They all were able to identify areas that they need to put purposeful effort into improving on their own. This is something I have desired for a long time. This discussion turned out to be a joyful discussion revealing how hearts were changing and finished up with each child setting goals for themselves.

My house is not perfectly clean, but it is mostly clean most of the time and growing in loving attitudes daily. I feel a tremendous joy in that. We are learning to love each other with a Christ-like love in ALL our activities. The journey continues and I daily anticipate what the Lord will be showing me in the mirror next.