Lorin Young

Traveling with kids, even if you're just going out to the store, has some parenting challenges, doesn't it? At home, my kids can have decent behavior, but in the car or plane, it all goes out the window. What's up with that? I think this is true for three reasons.

If you are researching chores for preschoolers, congratulations! You can implement a chore system at any age, but the younger you start the better! Using a picture chore chart , even a 2 -year old can learn that he or she is expected to put toys away at the end of the day, or put clothes in a hamper. As with everything, consistency is important and building expectations into a routine will make success come easier.

Think about it: toilets are dirty. Cleaning a dirty toilet is a dirty job. Toilet brushes are disgusting. There's no getting around that. I used to use a conventional toilet brush, but then I read How Clean is Your House, a book by Kim Woodburn and Aggie MacKenzie based on the BBC television show. These ladies bring up an important point about cleaning the toilet that changed the way I clean, and the way I teach my kids to clean.

I have some reading tips for parents of either little ones just learning to read or children who are starting to get frustrated. Reading comes naturally to some kids, and others really struggle, so there is no one size fits all strategy, but here are my ideas:

Paper clutter used to be my biggest frustration in my work at an organized home. No matter how tidy my house was, once the mail truck pulled away it was an inundation of paper junk mail every day. It's so frustrating that any company can send me paper clutter as much as they want. And then there are the free newspaper circulars on my lawn, door handle notices and coupons that I don't want. It should be a crime!

If your child won't practice their musical instrument, slow down and try a new approach. Before signing up for music lessons with each of my kids, we had a chat about responsibility. I explained that everyone involved has a job in order for it to work. My job as the parent is to pay the teacher and to drive my child to lessons. The teacher's job is to help my child to learn how to play. The child's job is to come to the lesson prepared and to practice. What was that last one? PRACTICE!

We started planning a weekly family meeting when our kids were old enough to articulate preferences and suggestions about the family goings on. We sat in the living room and discussed how things were going, like the chores system , or sibling problems . We also used this format to begin a discussion about family rules Now we're all a little busier and we have chosen to have a working dinner (LOL!) once a week.

What is the point of family rules? Well, I think kids benefit from having a structure of behavior expectations for everyone in the family, adults included. Kids hear no! no! no! all day long it's easy to forget about positive family interactions we should be striving toward.

Young kids, like preschoolers, who aren't quite reading yet might benefit from a picture chore chart. All they need is a symbol or some sort of reminder for what they need to do. For morning chores, you might select the five most important tasks for them to focus on.

We use a homeschool checklist to keep track of what each of our kids is working on each week. On the spectrum of structured/not structured, we're in the middle, but I find that using some kind of homework checklist helpful for me and for them.