My random Friday thoughts. . .
My weekly inspirational bathroom mirror quote. I should have laminated these after Ben gave them to me. Sometimes putting things on the bathroom mirror has water hazards :) But I love this quote. We do need each other.
So I am a planner. Summers are a great time to relax and enjoy each other, but we also have to get things done. We make goals and plans for each of the kids each summer. This year we made check lists for them too. I just put them in a page protector so they use dry erase markers on them, and we can reuse them each week. I got my ideas for the summer plans from the book 3 Steps to a Strong Family by Richard and Linda Eyre. A great book. Their 3 steps were traditions, order, and economy. Their economy gave a detailed plan of weekly 'allowances' and then summer plans to raise money. The allowances are earned and not just given. My kids have weekly lists to earn their allowances every two week. If they don't work, they don't get paid. That is the way it works--at our house in in the real world. Their summer plans they make goals for themselves in different areas--physical (shoot 50 free throws a day, etc), spiritual (pass off a personal progress project, read a certain amount in the scriptures, etc), mental (read so many books, do math games, etc) and then we assign a money amount to each goal. At the end of the summer we look at their goals and see how they did and adjust the amounts accordingly :) To help them keep on track, we made these weekly check lists.
This is 14-year-old Miss O's. Not everything on there has to be done daily. The first six items must be done before they can have computer or TV time, or go with a friend or anywhere. The bottom ones are weekly projects or a few times a week things.
This is 12-year-old Miss E's check list. Again top 6 are daily requirements.
And this is 9-year-old Mr J's check list. Same thing--top 6 are required. Their "Project" changes day to day. I choose it. It usually involves their section of the garden (our garden is divided into 4 sections and each kid is in charge of their own--planting, weeding, watering, etc), cleaning out different parts of their rooms--shelves, dresser, closets, or it can be a project they choose and check with me. The kids did a bunch of puzzles one day, Miss O made a school scrapbook.
My 16-year-old Miss A also has a check list, but she also has 2 different jobs--babysitting and working at a local ice cream shop, so with working those 2 jobs, she has less free time than the others and less need to get money from me :) But she still has her goals she works on for the summer--ACT prep, reading, etc.
The kids were scared when they saw this and thought they would never have free time, but they are finding out it works well. They have plenty of time to do other things, and they have their most important things done also.
Yeah, I am a crazy, planner mother like that :) but it keeps our summers sane, productive, active, and fun.
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