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Permalink Reply by Angie on February 2, 2010 at 5:32am

I have started making milestones. By 11:30 am I would like to pick up the house from everything we've done in the morning. Each child has his/her own responsibilities: M/W/F are laundry days and each child must wash and dry one load on their own then I do the rest. We all fold together (I have 5 kids, 10 and under) and everyone puts away his/her own clothing.
We do school together as much as possible, but when I am cooking dinner I ask the older kids to care for and play with the younger kids so that I can get the work done faster. I also have each child help me fix one meal a week. This gets them involved and teaches them what to do for when they are totally independent. The last schedule I make for the day is that we begin picking up and cleaning messes at 4:30 each day. This way we can relax after doing the dinner dishes. Getting your kids to help as much as possible is the key to making it run smoothly. They can be the biggest blessing in having a peaceful household!
Hope this helps!

Permalink Reply by Lois@ParentingTwinsandMore.com on June 14, 2011 at 11:32pm

We learned buddy system from my friend with 9 kids. She watched me go to homeschool co-op late each week for a year and taught me to give specific tasks to each kid that stays the same everytime we head out the house. We give ourselves at least 2 hours to get out of the house.

On a daily basis we still have more of a flow than a schedule which is NOT good.

 

 The highlight  that I like is that we assign meals to each of the older kids to help with on weekdays. They simply help during that meal: breakfast, lunch or dinner. My tween "helps" with breakfast for my 5yo...most of the time... when she remembers, my oldest teen usually remembers to do lunch to all 3 minis (she likes to cook) and my teen son helps serve the dinner.

Dinner is still too random but they usually take turns cooking at least 1x per week....except during basketball season..then my son backs off dinner responsibilities...

 

Scheduled help,  if you can get it will really help the most. Even if it is a friend who can help hold a baby for you as you fold laundry.

Permalink Reply by Lois@ParentingTwinsandMore.com on June 14, 2011 at 11:33pm

Its been about 5mos....hope you are well!

 

Permalink Reply by Jayde Norman on June 15, 2011 at 5:30am

Well it's been a while since I started this and I was able to get a schedule going for a while until we moved. I also realized that with so many little ones it's difficult to keep a schedule. We are going to try again this school year since I will have 3 in school and 2 still at home, our oldest left for college. Thanks for all the advice.