5. Getting Kids to Listen the 1st Time and Following Up After a Chore: Part 2 of Time Saving Strategies for Busy Households

Episode 2, Getting Kids to Listen the First Time:
"Delegating Chores to your child isn't about making life easier for you.  It's about growing your kids' abilities, character, and work ethic, teaching them responsibility, building up self-esteem based on accomplishment and capability, equipping them for success habits in life, and to be over-comers in whatever obstacles that come up in their lives."
Four Options with each Obligation in your life
1. Do it (put it on a to-do list)
2. Delegate it (keep a to-do list of the obligations that have been delegated so that you can followup)
3. Dump it (sometimes even good things need to be reduced)
4. Leave UnDone and handle it with prayer -"God, give me Passion for YOUR purposes in my day and Peace about the things that you don't want me to get done"

Create a code for your to-do list:
C- calls you need to make
E- electronic tasks
O- errands that I will do when out
Initials of the people to whom I delegated tasks so that I can follow up
Star by the "frog" task that you don't want to do and do it first!

100% Habit - give full attention and full effort to whatever you're doing and teach this habit to your children.  This is learning to live life abundantly -John10:10 and doing well for the Lord's sake - Col 3:23.

How to Followup with chores or tasks:
Have a high yet attainable standard - a Standard of Excellence within reason
Praise what you want Repeated
Appropriate consequences when they don't follow through with what they're capable of and have been clearly prepped by you to do

Getting Kids to Listen the 1st Time, Obey, or Obedience:
Think before you speak: "Is what I'm about to say, am I willing to enforce it?" "Is what I'm about to ask them to do consistent with our family values and rules?"
Be calm, clear, follow through consistently, have good eye contact when you tell them to do something and if they're little, also be near them.

*Mean what you say or don't say it.
*No must mean 'no' or it will mean, "Mom doesn't really mean no"
*Say it once and then enforce so that you value your word
*Be sure to hold to compliance to your word even when it's inconvenient to do so
Resources:
Book: Eat that Frog: 21 Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done (this is an affiliate link so Val may receive a small percentage of this purchase).
Book: Gaining Momentum: Preparing Your Student for Success with or without College.
Book: Wearing All Your Hats Without Wearing Out   

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Transcript

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Val 0:00

Hello, my intentional mom friends. This is Val Harrison, the practically speaking mom, I have a question for you. Do you think it's possible to get your kids to listen the first time you say something, even to have them honor your words and see them as valuable? Well, on today's episode you're going to learn how to bring value to your words so that they'll listen the first time. You're also going to learn how to follow up after handing off a chore to one of your children. We're going to do all of this today on part two of time saving strategies for busy households.

Rich 0:36

you're listening to the practically speaking mom podcast, the place for an intentional mom to build a strong family. This is Val's husband Rich and on an earlier episode, part one of time-saving strategies for busy households. You heard Val talk about the monkeys, those monkeys on our backs that are the responsibilities that keep us so busy.

Val 0:56

So sometimes God has intended for that monkey that's on your back that you do need to be the manager of to not have to do it, but maybe someone else to do it. So mom, I would just encourage you to try to change your mindset that you're not the doer of all the monkeys. You're the manager of the monkeys and you need to evaluate what are ones that only you can do, what things are are either children capable of doing and we'll develop things in them. And what might be other things that God has other people in your life to do.

Rich 1:28

Let's rejoin Val now as she talks about handing those responsibilities off to our children in part two of time-saving strategies for busy households

Speaker 2 1:41

inaudible ]

Val 1:41

so mom, I would just encourage you to try to change your mindset that you're not the doer of all the monkeys. You're the manager of the monkeys and you need to evaluate what are ones that only you can do that you for sure have to keep these monkeys and they have to be yours. What things are are the children capable of doing? And will develop things in them and what might be other things that God has other people in your life to do. And then there's other things that just aren't going to get done. In fact, I would say there's four things to consider with each monkey. There's four different things that could happen. You're either going to do it, delegate it, dump it, or leave it undone. So if it's one you're going to do, you need to be keeping it to do list of the things that you're doing. And then if it's a delegated thing, you need to keep a list of the things that are delegated to other people. And how do we effectively delegate? We're going to talk about that in a minute how we effectively delegate a task to one of the kids. All right? And then some of the monkeys on your back, some of the things that you feel are stressing you out. You just need to dump them. You need to evaluate if, if your stress is coming from too many obligations and some of them could be dumped. And then the final thing is just leaving it undone and and handling it with prayer. So that was do, delegate, dump and leave undone. And all of these things you're going to find in my book wearing all your hats without wearing out. I'll have some of it in show notes as well. Okay. I should say not everything we talked about today will be in the book, but a lot of it is in the book. Okay. Habits for time management. So with your to do list there, I have found this to be so helpful. It's just a silly little thing but it makes a really big difference. I label each thing on my to do list. A C means a phone call . So let's say I'm going to make phone calls, which I hate to make. Okay. My number one thing I hate most is snakes, but number two might be making phone calls. And so anyway, I will put a c by phone calls I need to make so that I c an make all of them at once. Then I'll put an E by electronic tasks, like sending an email or maybe typing something up that needs to be typed up or checking on this or that. so an E by all electronic tasks so that when I stop to do an electronic task, I'm going to do all of them. . And O by things that are out and about . So if I have errands that I need to run, I'm going to , while I'm out, I've got to stop at this store and go to the bank and I'm going to look at all my o's on my to-do list before I head out the door and make sure that I, I have a , I have a bag for when we're, going out and about, I want to make sure that I got all my stuff in my out about bag to be prepared for all of those tasks. And then also I put an initial by each person that I've delegated a task to . So you could keep your delegation to do list separate or mixed in. It's, it's easier for you to manage if you keep it separate. But either way you can put the child's initials or spouse , next to whoever you have delegated or need to delegate that task t o. So then I can, when my high schooler gets home from school o r from work, I can be like, o kay, let's check in for a few minutes. Let's go over these things that I have your initial beside. Something else that I do with my to do list is a concept from a book called Eat that Frog and in that book really easy read and it'd be a great read for if you have a high school student and you're wanting to teach him some success habits this is a great one. Eat that Frog is the concept that when you have a to do list, whatever on it is your most dreaded thing, st ar i t, it is your frog. And if you'll eat your frog first, then you'll usually get your whole list done and things will go more smoothly with your to do list. But if you avoid your frog on that to do list, then often you will, you'll avoid your to do list or you'll go slowly through your to do list. So eating the frog first helps you to get your to do list done. And two more things about to do lists that I want to talk to you about. One is touch things once, don't look at it and then pile it. no immediately write on it. If it's maybe it's a receipt that you need to file or I have a whole little system for what to do with the mail. I think I'll talk about that on another day. just for time sake. But at the very least here, have a rule with yourself that you want to touch it once. So you need to deal with it right then. And the final thing I wanted to mention about habits with your to do list is the a hundred percent habit. I talk about this one in my book. Gaining Momentum: Preparing Your Student for Success with or without College. And one of them is the a hundred percent habit. And this concept is that as you divide your, your day and your week into the different , in different boxes of the different responsibilities you have. Like for example, you could schedule a phone calling time, okay? And it might be five minutes, three times a week for phone calls. I like to keep them short cause I hate them , you know? Anyway, so you've got a box for that. It could be that you have a box for cleaning the bathroom for example. You've got these different boxes. What you want to do is you want to give 100% when you're doing that box, you don't want to make a phone call to someone where you have something else on your mind instead. I try before phone calls to make a quick prayer. "Dear Lord, h elp me to be what you want me to be for this person on this call right now. What do they need from you through me?" And that helps me to focus in and really be 100% with that person. If we can learn 100% habit in our interaction with others, so we focus on them better. I'm still working on that one. I am with my own kids. It's so easy to be busy with this task I'm trying to get done and they have some q uestion for me. Wow. It just increases our valuing of them to give them our face and give them our ears and try to be all in. If I can't be all in, then if it's a situation where I can then I'll say I need five more minutes so that I can really focus on you , or one more minute or whatever the case may be, but just developing more of a habit of 100% being all in at what you're doing instead of half of you is stressed about all the other monkeys that feel out of control or how am I going to deal with that next thing that's coming? Instead really try to give 100% to what you're doing. And to me that is developing a lifestyle of abundant living. Christ said that he came that we might have life more abundantly (_John 10:10______). Well, as we are intentional and as we are giving our all in something, the Bible says, whatever you do, do it with all of your m ight as working for the Lord ( _Colossians 3:23____). So when we give 100%, that produces abundant life. I don't mean abundant life of stuff. I mean just really living life to the fullest. Okay, so let's move on past our to do list. Let's see in my notes here, I have that I wanted to share the prayer with you, which I've already done. Lord, give me patience . Give me passion for your purposes in this day and a piece for the things you don't want me to get done. And that's one of our goals. I will share that prayer on our show notes also so that you can see that later. Steps to hand off a monkey. Okay. Are you ready for this one? Now, I've talked about this a little bit before in a podcast on work ethic, but let's just look at delegating tasks isn't about making life easier for you. It's about growing your kids' abilities, character and work ethic, teaching them responsibility, building up self-esteem based on accomplishment and capability, equipping them for success habits in life and to be overcomers in whatever obstacles that come up that might be keeping them from accomplishing that at that responsibility. I don't want to spend too much time on how to delegate a responsibility to your child because I have dealt with this also in a podcast called work ethic, so you might want to look for that one instead. If I'm , I'm recording several of these before they air, so if it has not aired yet, just keep your eye out for the work ethic one because I'll go into more detail there. But basically you show it, you show them how to do a task, you watch them do it, you praise what you want repeated and then you, you be sure that you continue to do follow up as you give your kids responsibility. If you never follow up than there's something you can count on. And that is that they're probably not going to keep doing it. You don't have the job of doing all of the monkeys, but you do have the job of following up with those who are supposed to be doing, different monkeys that you've delegated. So when you follow up, you want to keep your eye out for certain things or have a certain perspective. And that is you want to have a standard of excellenc e. If we have a low standard,when we follow up, we're going to produce low quality work. And that just means that we're giving our kids the habit of poor work ethic , a low standard and cutting corners instead of what is the best I can do here. N ow some of you are gonna have some perfectionist kids and their weakness leans toward trying too hard and making it too perfect for them. You're going to want to teach them a more balanced approach. But for most of them, for your kids are not perfectionists. You are wanting to increase their standard and how they perform at something. And so you want to keep a high standard. That doesn't mean that you have to have a drill Sergeant attitude, but a high standard will actually serve them so well in their life and you really want to take the time to do that and then praise what you want repeated, as I said before, and sometimes appropriate consequences when they, when they don't follow through with what they're capable of and what they clearly were equipped to do. I f you clearly gave instruction and they simply are not following through when you know that they knew and were capable of it then i f you don't give consequences. A couple of things. One, of course you, y ou're basically rewarding them for not doing what they were supposed to do, which decreases their responsibility level and decreases their work ethic. But also it devalues your word if you told them to do something and they don't do it, you have just devalued your word and that is going to reap negative consequences in your own life as well as theirs. If they are a child that doesn't value the words of those who are in authority over them. And I know those buzzwords right there that I just said, authority over them are not, that's not a popular perspective these days to think of parents as being a n authority over children. But I believe you know how there's fake news all over the place. Well, there's also a lot of fake parenting beliefs out there that are messing up kids' lives and this is one of them. Throughout their whole life, all of us at all ages we do have authorities over us. That is the system of community and society. And, and that is okay. It doesn't mean the authority people are at a higher value or they're in some way more valuable. That's not the case. But nevertheless, for systems to work, there has to be people that are achieving different layers of, of all of the workings. And if we do not teach our kids how to live under authority, now that doesn't mean that they're robots. I'm not trying to raise robots. I want them to think for themselves and be problem solvers and, and to be initiative takers and to be able to, to come and speak up to an authority when needed. Yeah. I want to deal with all of those things with my kids, but I also, for their own sake, they need to know how to handle being under someone's authority. One thing that you really want to do, you want to have a goal of bringing value to your words. Your words need to be calm and clear and consistent. And when you say something before, before you say something, you really want to think to yourself "is what I'm about to say, am I willing to enforce it?" I f I'm not willing to a gree to enforce it, I need to be quiet because would devalue my words if I told them something and then I didn't enforce it, then I took away the value of my words. Why should they value my words if I don't? U m, but also I need to ask myself before I say something "is what I'm about to ask them to do consistent with the priorities that I want for our household and is it consistent with loving people and loving God?" An d you know, evaluate some of the things we're asking our kids to do. Right? So you have to slow down enough to think through what you're going to ask hi m t o do before you do it and make sure it lines up with your family's values and make sure that you're willing to follow through with it. Okay. Then if you'll be calm and clear and if you'll follow through consistently with your word, then that's you valuing your words. An d if you do, then they will too. So some ways to value your words: me an what you say or don't say it. No. Must mean no or it means a "mom's words don't really matter." " I can do this because she never really makes me follow through when she says no. So it's no big deal. I'll just go ahead and do it anyway".

16:02

Say it once and then act , that's another step that can help you to really value your words. And that starts at a young age, by say it once and then act, I don't mean say it once and then punish. I mean say it once. If you started at a young age, let's say you've got a crawler, okay. And the crawler wants to go over to the electrical cords in the corner. A , I need to make a safe environment for my kids, but I cannot unplug every single thing, right? So there are going to be some, some dangers around and I need to teach them safety in those dangers. Right? That's loving them. It might be unpleasant to give them boundaries. It might be some work on my part, but it's because I love them.

Val 16:48

Right. Okay. So let's say there's some electrical cord and I need them to not crawl over and pick up that electrical cord . So I will clearly tell them "no, not safe. No." And then if they reach their handout or head out again, you know, start heading that direction, then I need to go scoop them up and move them away from it and say, "mama said no." So when I say say it once and then act, I don't mean that the action is always punishment right then, but it is an action that shows you really mean what you say. You know my, I was keeping my , two little grandsons about a year ago, so they at that time w ere like a newborn and a about 14, 15 m onth old. So I'm holding the baby and the toddler started doing exactly that, headed towards a, an electric cord. And I said, "grandma says no", well immediately he stopped, he got this really pouty look on his face and then he says, "no, no, no." And then he turned around and he headed towards something else. And you know why he did those things when he was 14 or 15 months old. He did that because his mommy, my daughter had been consistent with her words. She had been consistent to say it once and then act and and so these, these kinds of things, mom's the younger that you can teach them that your words have value and you mean what you say the simpler and the more peaceful your home can be. Imagine the difference between a a child like this who has been taught that no really does mean no and one that hasn't. If he hadn't been trained at all in that same scenario, it would have gone much more differently. Much more unpleasant for all of us, for me, for the baby, fo r, for him. And so when we value our words enough to really mean what we say and follow through, it makes a huge difference fo r, for their lives and for your family as a whole. Okay. So some additional practices with that. Think before you speak and make sure you're willing to enforce your words after the first time you say it. Make sure your child is really listening before you start talking. So that means like getting down on their eye-level , um, and, and making sure they're close enough to you, especially a younger child . Okay . But all ages, my kids, that's a really important thing to me is that we have good eye contact when I'm giving them an instruction. I teach a preschool group at one of my co-ops and in that preschool group I tell them, "look at miss Val when I'm talking to you, let me see your eyes." And that is what I expect to happen because I want us to make sure that what I'm about to say, I want to be able to see in their eyes that they are comprehending what I'm saying and I want them to have, I want to have their full attention i n what I'm about to say. So , m ake sure they're really listening before you talk to them with eye contact and proximity, the distance away you are from them based on their age. Okay. S low down to give your words the attention they deserve. Make sure you're speaking clearly enough and slowly enough based on their age comprehension. gi ve clear instructions that are reasonable for your child's age and ability. Th at's of course, ag ain, have them repeat back to you what you asked them to do. Now this one, I started implementing this when my kids were pretty young, right? And so I had a real, my third oldest was also my fi rst b o rn s on. Okay. So it 's t wo girls and then boys. So my oldest son, he was very strong willed. He's awesome. And he can accomplish anything he wants to in this life because he doesn't let obstacles stand in his way. But that strength comes with a certain , um, stubbornness you could say as well. And that's good. But it often makes it complicated when you're needing to be the authority over this child and you do want them to, to learn that there are times in life where there's g oing t o be authority over them. And so I noticed with him that when I started h aving him repeat back to me what he was being asked to do, and I think he was about three years old when I started that with him. U m, maybe late two, but three for sure. Oh my goodness. The saying what I was asking, let's say that I was asking him to take the towels out of the dryer and put them in the basket. O kay. So I got down on his level and I'm like, okay, Nathan, I need you to take the towels like this and put ' em in the basket. Okay. So I'm, I pull one out and I put it in the basket. Right. And I said, now I need you to tell me what, what mom wants you to do, what are you going to do? Well, the process of saying take it out and put it into the basket, you would think that I was asking him to yank out his own tooth. It was, it was just utter misery to him because in his mind saying those things verbally was like a contract he was going to follow through if he said it. And that shows some really, really great character qualities in him down the road for honesty and integrity of course but it also showed me as a mom, that was the key with him, was making sure that I was having him repeat what he was supposed to do . Of course, this brings clarity to a child so that mom can for sure know, they understand the job that you want them to do. But also for some kids, certain personality types, it works like a contract. In their mind they are going to do it cause they said they were going to do it. So that's a helpful step to take as well. it also ensures that neither of you have an excuse to renege because you both just committed verbally to that handoff of that responsibility.

23:12

Okay. And then finally b e sure you hold to compliance to your word even when it's inconvenient for you to do so. So really, mom, I actually, let's say we just had a really busy day and it had been a long day and we all just got home and we're tired and we're hungry and I notice out of the corner of my eye that my child is doing this, something they shouldn't be doing. Well, if I'm not willing to enforce it right then I don't even say anything.

Val 23:41

I just pretend like I don't even notice they're doing it because it be worse for me to tell them to stop and then not follow through or to not follow through but just acknowledge that I know that they're doing it. That would be worse in the long run than if I just not say anything right now and then later when I'm rested and they're rested and everything, then I can deal later with the issue if they're old enough. Of course. So for me, I chose to value my words more than even making sure they're , they're complying all the time. If they think that, I don't know. Okay, well that's a side issue, isn't it? So let's move on to implement new systems one at a time.

Rich 24:31

Well , we're going to stop today's episode at that little teaser for what's coming next. Cutting chaos in the home is something that's really important to Val and good systems are a big part of that.

Val 24:42

Systems on little things can be so helpful. It's these little kinds of systems that really reduces the chaos in life and those kids are capable of doing those things for themselves.

Rich 24:55

Hear more of what Val has to share about helpful systems on part three of timesaving strategies for busy households.

Val 25:04

I hope you enjoyed today's episode of the practically speaking mom . The podcast for an intentional m om to build a strong family. You can find lots more from me, my blog, books, the six rooms o r t he intentional m om's home at my website, practically speaking mom.com if you found this podcast to be helpful, I would be so honored if you would share it with other people. Subscribe to the podcast, f ollow my blog and j oining the practically speaking moms online community through Instagram and Facebook and we also have a wonderful private Facebook group, a place where I get to interact with you more personally where you can share your ideas and you can give your feedback about the podcast. You can ask me personal questions about it and we can just interact on all different kinds of levels. There's so many wonderful intentional moms in this group and I would love for you to be one of them. The name of that private Facebook group is intentional mom, strong family, so I hope you'll join that today and let me get to know you. If you think other moms would benefit from this podcast, would you please take a few minutes to leave a review on iTunes so that iTunes will recommend this podcast to moms when they search? I'm looking forward to spending time with you again next week. Right here on the practically speaking mom podcast, the place for an intentional mom to build a strong family. See you soon.