Someone submitted a question via facebook recently asking for help in sleep training young children for an Establish the House post. While that post is in the works (I want to get a variety of mothers giving their advice) I thought it would be a great idea to use today’s post as a way for you to ask questions. Is there something about running a household you want to learn more about? Any aspects of mothering, or cooking, or cleaning you would like to see covered in an upcoming Establish a House post? Ask away or provide feedback in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!
Here’s the graphic to show what topics the Establish a House series covers. I try to run these series of posts every Tuesday.
Scary. It’s like you read my mind! I came over here to find your email to ask you a question and boom! A post for questions!
Here it is: Could you do a review of the math curriculum you’ve used and why you like it? I’m having such a hard time deciding what is right for my kids. For now we are just sticking with what I bought for the year, but I’m wondering what to do next year. You mentioned Abeka for younger grades. What do you like about it? Do you really have to have all the little “optional” manipulatives and such they sell for it? Do you need the teacher manual or could you get by without it?
I bought Saxon for 1st grade math and I realized I could have just bought the workbooks and skipped everything else! I don’t find it that hard to see the next concept they are presenting and explain it in a simple way to the kids. It’s expensive to buy all the stuff they sell with some of these different programs and often it’s not needed.
Ha ha, I do have another question!
How about dealing with the baby and getting any school done. My baby just cries and screams all day. The other kids can’t help him be happy, he doesn’t want anyone but me, I’ve tried helping him learn to play by himself for a few minutes but he nearly passes out from screaming. Have you ever had a kid like that? It’s so hard to teach with all the crying and screaming going on!
I know that your kids would never argue… but I’d love to hear about how you would manage it, especially in the middle of winter when playing outside sometimes isn’t an option.
Also, try to imagine if it were younger kids bugging older kids until the older kids finally got mad and did something their mom regretted. 🙂
Thanks!
How do you find time for yourself? How do you keep from feeling overwhelmed? Where is the line between setting boundaries for yourself but not making your kids feel like you need a break from them?
Also, similar to another commenter, how do you deal with kids when they get really heated and hurt siblings (physically or verbally)?
One more, how do you work with your spouse when you disagree about how to raise/discipline the kids?
I love all your insights!!!
Thank you for this opportunity! I have 3 older kids (ages 9-12) and 2 littles (ages 2 and 4). We homeschool as well and I really struggle with feeling that I am neglecting my littles as I do school with my older kids. One student especially, really struggles– so I feel that I am faced with neglecting either the littles even more or his school work, or letting him get away with minimal effort and do sloppy work.
Also, how do you have time for other projects?
Thanks again!
Some overall good discipline tactics that work would be great. How have you handled three year old melt downs? 7 year old laziness? 5 year old wining? Do you have a good system that works? Thanks!!
How do you eat chocolate every day and not weigh a gazillion lbs? J/K
Maybe this has already been done and I missed it, but I want a post about motivation. You know, rewards vs punishments kinda stuff. My kids have somehow come up with the idea that work is not fun (go figure) and therefore not worth just about any reward I can come up with. In an ideal world, there wouldn’t be any rewards but the satisfaction of a job well done. Another problem I run into is the kids asking for things like candy or screen time which I don’t feel like just plain giving to them any time they ask, and so I tell them they can earn it by doing a job, and suddenly in their mind any job done should earn them something special. It’s a tough cycle to break. I know they should have responsibilities just for being a member of this household and contributing to the mess and such, but if I focus on punishments (i.e. privileges or toys taken away) I feel like a slave-driver –not to mention sometimes that makes even more work (e.g.Legos get taken away and suddenly rather than playing quietly for an hour they are running amok, or worse whining at me for ideas of what to do). Sometimes it seems like it would be much easier for me to just do it for them; however, I know it’s imperative that they learn to work, and I didn’t sign up to become anyone’s maid, so I keep trying. Any advice would help, but I’m also dealing with 4 kids that are 6 and under, so some specifics for younger stages would help so perhaps we could gets some good habits in place early (if I haven’t ruined my kids already). Thanks!
Here is one a little related to homeschooling. How can you keep your kids in the world, but not of the world? That is kind of a general question so let me explain. My kiddos are quite a bit sheltered from media and peers – you know, the things that keep them up to date with the modern world. We are very open with them so I don’t try to “hide” them from what is out there. I feel like I can talk to them about anything. However, I notice that the kids like at primary/scouts, etc. are really into things like TV shows, movies, and forming rock bands and my kids have a little trouble finding things in common with them. They are getting to that age that they want friends outside the family. My kids watch movies, but not nearly what their friends watch. Anyways, you are lucky that you don’t have the neighborhood kids like a few feet away from your house (I am so jealous!). How do you deal with kids that you feel are not good influences (and possibly not safe to be with) always knocking on the door and wanting to play with your kids? (Especially when these kids are in your ward and their parents send them over.) A nice discussion on the topic of helping kids develop good friendships and dealing with not having friends to play with if the kids around are not good influences would be wonderful. Luckily we a house of kids so they always have someone to play with – but my 10 and 8 year old see their peers “hanging out” a lot together and maybe are feeling a bit left out.
I don’t have a question as much as a response to/ thoughts for Los Industriosos. We are a family with four children in a pretty suburban, blue collar area. We have all of our school aged kids in the local public system. We’ve done private, parochial (church school), and public. We’ve had the best luck with friendships at the public school, which is out of the norm. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that families not homeschooling face the same issues you discuss – in the world but not of the world. For us, the very tedious balance is asking lots of questions and creating the “fun” house. We talk to the parents of kids mine want to play with/ hang out with and get to know the family. Sometimes we decide not to know them better 🙂 We have a house with only one tv, no real gaming systems, and no smart phones, but we have the house that all the high school aged ones choose because we have FOOD! Anyway, I just wanted you to know you are not alone!
All great questions! I’ll start brainstorming and asking other mamas to help contribute in answering these questions in the coming months. Thanks gals!