I recently polled my Facebook group about what they struggle with the most at home. Meal planning was #1, and getting family to help around the house was #2. Since I’ve already blogged about meal planning, which you can find here, I thought it’d be appropriate to focus this week’s blog on managing the household.
Just like any well-run business, a household needs someone in charge. Just like there are CEOs of a company, there is also a head honcho in the home. Whether it’s the mom or the dad, there are still other members of the family who should also be responsible for helping around the house. No good company can be run by one person, just like no household can have one person doing it all.
Ok, you’re thinking. Easier said than done. You’ve asked your spouse for help countless times. You’ve screamed at the kids at the top of your lungs to clean up. No matter what, you feel like you’re at your wits’ end. So how do you possibly change these behaviors after so long?
Relationships
As a former educator and administrator, I’ve learned many things about behavior, and I’ve also applied it in my home. Without boring you to death about antecedents and reinforcers, I’ll just let you know that behavior can be changed. Before working on behaviors though, relationships come first. I wrote an ebook called Manage Your Busy Hive: Reclaim your Queen Bee title and train your worker bees that goes more in depth on strengthening the family unit, so for today’s blogging purposes, I’m going to quickly say that family meetings are a must, and spending time with your family is even more important. This builds the relationship needed for everyone to want to help at home. I’m not saying you don’t already spend time with your family or you don’t love each other, but I am emphasizing that there’s a difference between running from activity to activity and briefly touching base in the car and intentionally focusing on being with each other.
Family Meetings
After these relationships are strengthened, tough conversations need to be had. You have to be able to be vulnerable enough to tell your family what you need. This isn’t weakness. This is, in fact, courageous. As a mom, who wants to admit they need help? Social media throws spotless houses, laughing couples, and picture perfect images that make you feel inadequate in your face on a daily basis. Truth be told, though, none of that is real. Real life is working together, supporting each other, and being supported when you need it. These talks should happen at family meetings.
When you discuss needs at these meetings, you must explain and show what you need. One reason people don’t change their behavior is because they don’t know how. If you’re asking for help doing dishes or loading the dishwasher, you need to explicitly teach what this looks like to your standards. If you don’t, they’ll do it incorrectly, you’ll get upset and offended because it caused you more work to fix it, and they’ll never offer to help you again. After teaching, you need to provide specific feedback and encouragement. This will continue the correct help and change the incorrect help. Please be mindful and genuine with your feedback, though. No one wants to be yelled at or feel inadequate. Nicely showing them how they can fix it will go extremely far (especially with your spouse).
Reinforcers
The other part of changing behavior is reinforcement. I mentioned kids getting screamed at if they didn’t do something to help out correctly. The screaming would be a negative consequence. Instead, you want to focus on positive reinforcers — rewards that encourage the behavior. Some reinforcers could include allowance, screen time, a shopping trip to a favorite store, or a special food treat. I caution that you sparingly use food as a reinforcer because that causes other bad habits if given too often. Whatever you choose (and you can change it up), you must be consistent, and it must be motivating to the person receiving it. Failure to follow through with your reward will lessen the value of the work.
There are plenty of people who scoff at rewarding children to do things around the house. I’m not here to argue, but I will say that reinforcers are a must if kids are not contributing at home at all. You can slowly fade out positive reinforcers as the behavior becomes a habit.
Speaking of habits, let’s talk about bad ones. If your kids are leaving their shoes in the middle of the floor for you to trip over, you need to change that habit. If you’ve shown them where to put their shoes but they continue to misplace them, you could move their shoes upstairs, causing them to have to take an extra trip up the steps each time before they leave the house. You could take one of their shoes, causing them to have to ask for it each time. You could tie their laces together, making putting their shoes on more of a task. The purpose of this is training them that they no longer want these things to happen, so they will put their shoes away correctly and not receive the consequences I previously mentioned. You could also remove things not related to the behavior. For instance, you can take away screen time or ground them; however, the more closely related and timely the consequence is to the behavior, the more likely the behavior will change. You may say those things add to your plate, which they do. But after a few days, if you’re consistent, the kids, too, will be consistent with the desired behavior.
By strengthening your family relationship, communicating via family meetings, and being consistent with reinforcers, your family dynamic will change because you’ll be working as a team, and you’ll be able to successfully delegate appropriate tasks to everyone and watch them complete them successfully.
For more information on age-appropriate chores, family and spouse activities, and family meetings, please check out my ebook Manage Your Busy Hive: Reclaim your Queen Bee title and train your worker bees. If you’re not sure you can tackle this on your own, contact me for consultation services. I’d love to help you create beauty and order in a chaotic world.
