Ten Things You Can Get Done in 15 Minutes

Got a spare 15 minutes?  Here are 10 quick things you can do in 15 minutes that make you feel like you have accomplished something.

Check in with your kids or spouse.  Take time to hug and tell them you love them.

Clean out a small drawer

Update your family calendar

Fill out and sign a permission slip

Make coffee for the next day

Empty the dishwasher

Feed a pet

Set the table

Get and sort through the mail

Leave an unexpected love note

Creative Ways of Finding Money for Your Family Vacation Jar

Now that we have our Family Vacation Jar decorated and sitting proudly in the middle of our fireplace mantle, we are looking for some creative ways of adding money to our jar on a semi-regular basis.  Here is what we have come up with so far:

Dad’s Pockets - If your home is anything like ours, my husband routinely leaves his spare change sitting on the dresser.  Now rather than have it sit there collecting dust, we scoop it up and place it in our vacation jar.

Seat Cushions - Inevitably change will fall out of someone’s pocket while relaxing on the couch, so we have found underneath the seat cushions a great place to look.   The washer and dryer are also a great place to look.

Bottom of Mom’s Purse - When switching over purses this spring, clean out all of the spare change that has fallen to the bottom.

Bottle Returns - If you live in a state with deposits on pop bottles, return them to the store and use the deposit return for your vaction jar.

Ice Cream or Lemonade Stand - Got bored kids this summer?  Then let them set up a lemonade or ice cream stand and use the profits to fund the jar.

Creating a House Cleaning Schedule

The key to keeping house cleaning from overrunning your family life is to create a plan consistent with your housecleaning philosophy and stick to it.  As with any new plan or change there will be bumps along the way, so don’t be afraid to fine tune it as you go along or change it as your schedule changes. 

How to Start

Begin by making a master list of all your house cleaning chores.  After you have made your master list, go through the list and indicate whether they should be done on a weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually time basis.

After you have your master list complete, go through and clean it up by writing it on a house cleaning schedule.  You can use one of ours, create your own to suit your own tastes and style, or try using an online chore organizer like MyChores to help get you organized.

                House Cleaning Schedule - PDF Format

                House Cleaning Schedule - Word Format

After you have a clean copy of your house cleaning schedule, print off a copy to keep in your Kitchen Folio or attached to your refrigerator and bulletin board.

Also, be sure to add the chores to your family calendar or planner as well as to your daily routines.

Tips to Make House Cleaning Easier

Get the entire family involved in the house cleaning by assigning age appropriate chores to kids and consider paying them a weekly allowance. 

Avoid adding a lot of cleaning to the days when you have a lot of appointments or errands.

Keep it flexible - be willing to move things around a bit to fit in last minute requests from the kids or work or the school

Don’t save everything for one day of the week.  Do a little bit every day so that you don’t become overwhelmed.  It is much easier to find a free 30 minutes here or there rather than a 2 or 3 hour block of time to clean the house.

House Cleaning - The Thorn in Every Family’s Side

Our house cleaning philosophy here at Families with Purpose is simple - clean it to your standards, minimize the distraction it takes on your family life, and don’t beat yourself up when it doesn’t get done.   And with this philosophy in mind you won’t find us spending a lot of time writing about how to clean your house.  We would much rather write about creating an authentic family life for yourself and children than how to clean your house.   We will leave the nitty gritty of cleaning up to the experts like FlyLady, Real Simple, and Organized Home.  They can teach you much more about cleaning than we ever could and really are the experts.

So if you haven’t deserted us for one of the cleaning experts, here are the details behind our house cleaning philosophy.  Tomorrow we will talk more specifically about how you can create your own house cleaning plan.

Clean It to Your Standards - Just like everyone has a different tolerance for pain, everyone has a different tolerance for a dirty house.  Some of us won’t be satisfied if we aren’t Martha Stewart clean while others go through life just fine being pleasantly blind to the 1 inch covering of dust on the furniture.  The point is to be honest with yourself about what is important to you (not your mother! ) and what in reality you can accomplish.   After you have determined what a realistic standard is for yourself and family, accept it and find peace with that standard. 

Minimize the Distraction it Takes on Your Family - We have talked in the past about the peace in having a plan, and establishing a house cleaning plan is no different.  Just knowing that you have a plan to get the cleaning done brings a lot of comfort to any busy parent.  The key to any house cleaning plan though is in finding that delicate balance between having a clean house and getting it done without sacrificing too much family harmony.  Your plan has to be robust enough so that the kids aren’t embarrassed to bring over their friends, but not so over the top that you have no time for fun.    You want your house cleaning plan such that you find yourself saying yes more often than no to last minute requests for a game of Family Fun or fun bike rides around the neighborhood.

Don’t Beat Yourself Up When It Doesn’t Get Done - The reality of life is that everything on our do list is not going to get done.  There will be days when house cleaning will take a backseat to late work nights, science fair projects, and Little League baseball games and THAT IS OKAY.  After all, how do you want your kids to remember you?  As a parent who was always cleaning or a parent who made it to every game?  You decide and remember the little things really do matter.

Family Fitness Challenge

Exercise has never been at the top of my list of fun things to do and I do whatever I can to not fit it into my schedule.  My husband has a slightly more positive outlook and manages to fit in weekly volleyball games, bike rides in warm weather, and an occasional workout on our home exercise equipment.   And if it weren’t for the really comfortable overstuffed chair that always seems to call his name, he would be more active as well.  If we didn’t have kids we would maybe be more accepting of our sedentary lifestyle and feel a lot less pressure to exercise and stay fit, but because we believe in walking the talk with our kids we are forced into making honest attempts at exercise and eating healthy. 

So to give ourselves a boost of enthusiasm, we have implemented the Family Fitness Challenge this spring.  It is our simple little way of teaching the kids about eating healthy and exercising as well as fitting in some fun quality family time as well. 

Simply stated, a Family Fitness Challenge is an exercise and healthy habit plan we came up with together to try and make healthier choices.  We have established a few goals and will track our progress over the spring and summer months with occasional rewards thrown in along the way.  Here is our fitness challenge for this spring:

Eat 3 healthy meals 6 days a week

Exercise 3 times a week one of which has to be as a family

Eat only 2 junky snacks a day

Eat only 1 sugary cereal 1 day a week

So if you are like us and are looking for some creative ways to get your family moving here are some tips and suggestions to help you get your Family Fitness Challenge going:

Make your goals as a family, asking one of the older children to write them down.

Make your fitness goals realistic.  It is better to start small and then build up rather than set them too high and fail.  Be mindful of your family’s schedule, routines, and personality while writing your fitness goals.  Make your fitness goals fit your family rather than forcing your family to fit your goals.

If your family fitness goals include cutting back on junk food, you may have to consider thinking through and defining as a family what is and isn’t junk food as well as appropriate serving sizes. 

Use a fitness chart to track your progress and let your kids take turns handing out the gold stars.  You can create your own or use our template.

                Family Fitness Challenge Progress Chart - PDF Version

Build in rewards along the way.  For example, a possible reward may be a night at the movies after 4 weeks of consistently meeting your goals.

Don’t set weight goals for your kids.  Keep the goals focused on fun, eating healthy, and exercise.

For more complex goals, consider using a fitness notebook to help keep track of your progress.

Good luck!

Family Travel Goals

My kids are big dreamers.  Recently we sat down as a family to set some family vacation goals and at the top of the family’s list was a family vacation to Hawaii.  Obviously the kids don’t grasp the magnitude of what a family vacation for 6 will cost, but since they outnumber us (parent’s remember this if you are thinking about having a third child) we have Hawaii at the top of our list.  But just because Hawaii is at the top of our list and is what we are saving for in our Family Vacation Jar doesn’t mean we will be going there anytime too soon.  We will probably have to amuse ourselves with some family vacations in the continental United States for a while.  But we still keep it at the top of our list and are making plans and dreams to someday get there. 

The benefit of setting family vacation goals is the satisfaction, closeness, and pride family members gain by accomplishing something together as a family.  The destination is the reward.

So how does a family go about setting family vacation goals?  Here are some tips and suggestions to help you get started.

Take some time as a family to sit down together and talk about all the fun places you would like to vacation to as a family. Don’t be critical of any of the ideas, just write them down for now. Ask one of the older children who can write to be in charge of making the list.

Once the list is completed, talk over the pros and cons of some of the trips. Are some of them really expensive (like Hawaii…), are all the kids old enough to really enjoy them, how will we get there, how long will they take, etc.

After you have discussed all the ideas, take a family vote as to which ones go at the top. Either re-write your list with the first choices at the top or make a special indication on your current list of which ones where the family’s top picks. Save your list in your family travel file or paperwork organizer folder to help you remember and for future discussions.

Start making plans for one of your top choices.

If one of your top choices is a big expensive one like our trip to Hawaii, start making long range plans by tackling the Yeah But’s.

Good luck!

How Will They Remember You?

Families with purpose are families who dream together and work together to make their dreams and goals a reality.

My 9 year old daughter, Jennifer, has a real talent for saying it like it is.  You will always know what she honestly thinks about something.  Got a new hairdo?  She will be the first to say you should have saved your money.   Didn’t do such a great job with the evening family meal?  She’ll let you know.   When Jennifer talks, I always listen because I know I am getting the truth even if I might not want it. 

So when we recently had this conversation, I listened.

Jennifer:  I like it when you are like this!

Me: Like what?

Jennifer: Happy.

Me:  I’m always happy?!

Jennifer:  Well not really, sometimes you’re grumpy.

And if truth be told, sometimes I am grumpy.  Whether it is because of a lack of sleep, long hours, tight deadlines, or just too much to do, there are times when I can be grumpy and less than pleasant to be around.  I know there are a lot worse things I could be as a parent and I should count my blessings if she only sees me as grumpy, but her comment did hurt a little and got me thinking.  How do my children see me?   Do they see me as the happy and fulfilled person I believe myself to be (with an occasional grumpy day thrown in) or do they see me as something else? 

Providing a positive and uplifting home life for your children is one of the most important things you can do as a parent.  Children are sponges and live what they learn.  If children are raised in negative unhappy homes, chances are good they will grow up to be negative unhappy individuals.    So as parents, being personally happy and fulfilled is just as important as providing love, food, shelter, and discipline. 

So as parents how do we provide our kids with positive uplifting home lives especially when we as parents aren’t feeling that way?  Here are a few suggestions to help.

Take Time to Understand and Admit Why You Aren’t Happy - Sometimes parents are living such busy lives we struggle to understand what is causing us to be unhappy.  To have any real chance of fixing the problems in our lives, we first must understand their cause, so take the time to really understand the root of your unhappiness.

Be Willing to Make Changes and Take Risks - Sometimes being happy means we need to make changes.  Let’s face it, change is hard and sometimes getting past the yeah but’s can be difficult, but to attain real happiness, change and risk is almost always required.

Have a Passion - Life is too short to spend it going through the motions of working an unfulfilling job or having no interests of your own.  Find something you’re passionate about and make it a priority to fit it into your life.  The Simple Dollar, LifeHack, and of course Oprah all have great resources to help you find your passion.

Make a Plan - As I’ve said before, there is a lot of peace in having a plan, so create a plan to make the changes necessary in your life.

Life isn’t always going to be a bed of roses and it is important not to shelter our children from all the bad.   But after they have grown and left to live their own lives, how will they remember you?  Will they remember you as happy? 

Are You Parenting with Consciousness?

A family with purpose is a family who acknowledges their problems and who work together for resolutions. They deal with their problems and issues with open communication and with confidence.

I have been thinking a lot lately about two words, consciousness and ethics, and how they relate to parenting . . . they are both words that have been used a lot lately with parenting, so I wanted to explore the meaning and relate that to what I believe and think about parenting.

So first, let’s look at what both of these words mean.

Consciousness

To be conscious is to be aware and deliberate, to be fully active and awake to ones own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.

So, as a parent, this means that you would put thought into how you parent, you understand yourself and what you do would have purpose and meaning — not just be something you did blindly and without forethought.

Ethical

Pertaining to or dealing with morals or the principles of morality; pertaining to right and wrong in conduct.

So, to parent with ethics would mean that you knew what your parenting principles were, that you had a clear sense of what was right and wrong to you and that you instilled morals into your parenting.

No easy task, but I feel that this is the way we must be moving as parents. In a world that seems so disconnected and selfish, isn’t it right that we, the leaders of the next generation raise our children with ethics and consciousness?

I have come to believe lately that there are two purposes in parenting, two things that we as parents are here to do, and that is to raise children with conscience and character. These two things alone will stand any child in good stead and could change the world.

So how do we do that?

I think that firstly, we must focus on what our children will become, not what they will do. We focus as parents far too much on what our children will do when they grow up, rather than thinking about who they will be. Some parents will go to great lengths to ensure their children get all they need to get a good career, yet spend little time thinking about their character. We seemed to think that character is something that is maintained in our children and we only have to do a few things to keep it. It is not! It is something that is built from scratch and we, as the parents, are the main teachers. Instead of thinking of what type of job or career we want our children to have, we should start thinking of the values we want them to have, of the morals we want they to abide by and of the character traits we want them to possess. When we start thinking of character instead of career, we can make different choices.

Let me give you an example here. I am asked a lot whether we should offer bribes or rewards to entice our children to get good grades and my answer in always no, (in fact I spoke about this on Woman’s Hour). People appear shocked that I feel that way and think that actually bribing their child for a short while to give them the best start in life is surely no problem. However, I believe that what is more important than passing exams are learning dependant, self-directed study (a character trait) and therefore the question is a no-brainer for me. Does bribing produce a character trait that you want to see in your children? I am sure most of you would answer no to that one — after all we don’t want our children to only work when a carrot is dangled in front of them, do we? We want them to love learning new things, to be self driven and self motivated, right? So why do we blindly do the opposite? I have coached so many teenagers in higher education who are really struggling because they have not learnt the art of self-motivation because, yes you got it, their parents bribed them into passing their exams.

We must understand that parenting is a job and a very serious one at that. It is an action to take and a change to make in our children minds, hearts and wills. It is not blindly giving in to everything just because we want an easy life or the Joneses up the road have one. It is about treating every interaction as a learning opportunity, as a chance to influence our child’s mind. Heart and wills in a positive way. Let’s face it; what ever we do we are having an influence so let’s make sure that it is positive. Now I understand, I really do, how easy it is to give in to our child’s smiles, tantrums, strops, door-slamming, it is so easy to do the quick fix easy response. However, as parents we are leaders of our children and we must do what is right, not what is easy. We must put our child’s welfare and their future character above their smiles and whining. We must support them in understanding that conscious decisions should not be made on feelings alone and that their strong wills and desires should not have us cave in. The more we give in to their every whim and want, the more we teach them to not use rational though and reason; they just know the feeling of wanting and have it met, there is no conscious choice, just a strong feeling or desire. If we don’t teach them in early life to think consciously and not give into to desire, then how on earth are they going to make good choices when it comes to drugs, sex and morality?

We must let our children solve their own problems. We cannot step in all the time and solve them for them or distract them; we must not be scared to allow our children to feel pain and discomfort and be miserable for a while. I see all the time parents stepping in to make their children feel better, it is almost as if we have forgotten that sadness and pain are all part of what moulds us and makes us better human beings. To not allow our children this luxury is denying them of an important life lesson. So, instead of stepping in because we as the parent may not like to feel pain, we need to ask our children how they are going to solve their own problems, what they can do about it. Yes sure, we can support if support is needed but we must stop solving their problems or distracting them from the feelings.

We must replace escapism with realism. For children nowadays, what is real? They appear to be so wrapped up in nasty worlds that involve video games, mobile phones, MSN; I mean when do they really have real conversations and interactions anymore? Children nowadays look up to celebrities and the entertainment industry with magazines full of their antics. Materialism and greed appear to have replaced kindness and sharing. There is a great quote that says, “If kids have no heroes, they will follow clowns”. I am not passing judgment here, but where are the heroes? Are they in OK Magazine, are they in the video games, or are they in the countless teen movies? Even our sporting heroes are now becoming celebrities in their own right. We must, as parents, show our children a balance; we must have real conversations with them and talk about real life and real heroes. We must make sure that they have a balanced viewpoint of our own lives; if all they see is us coming home from work, relaxing and watching TV with a bottle of wine then they will they not believe that escapism is all we do. We must not protect them from real life; we must share with them our hopes, fears, highs and lows. We cannot sugar-coat everything. After all, life is not sugar-coated, is it? We cannot always give in to the latest technology craze and be happy that our children spends hours in a virtual world; we must talk to them about life and ensure that they live in the real world, not in a life that is a fantasy and cannot exist.

Sarah Newton is one of the world’s leading teen coaches. She enjoys a high profile and is one of the only Teen Coaches to have hosted her own eight part TV series ‘My Teen’s a nightmare - I’m Moving Out’. Her first book ” Help! My Teenager is an Alien - the everyday situation guide for parents” was launched in March 2007 by Penguin and rarely drops out of the top ten parenting teenager books. Sarah believes that parents can have great relationships with their teenagers and still get all the boring things done and to this end she offers everyday practical advice. To get Free access to Sarah’s “3 easy proven techniques to instantly reduce stress in your home and dramatically improve the relationship with your teen” go to http://www.sarahnewton.com

The Power of a Good Routine

A family with purpose is a family who strives to manage and balance their lives and who work diligently to prevent their lives from being controlled by outside factors. A family with purpose sets priorities and lives their lives accordingly.

For the most part, all of us have some sense of a daily routine already.  Usually dictated by school, work, and extra-curricular activities, our daily routines at a minimum usually involve consistent schedules for getting ourselves off to school or work in the morning, dinner on the table in the evening, and into bed at night.  But what many families struggle with is fitting in and remembering all the extra’s that go along with having kids, full time jobs, and outside commitments and obligations.   The extra’s like making lunches, throwing in a load of laundry, running errands, returning phone calls, arranging play dates, and helping kids with homework.   It’s all the extra’s that go along with our major commitments that can become overwhelming and add to a family’s stress, chaos, and frustration.  And this is where the power of a good daily routine can be a life saver for busy families by helping families gain focus and get more consistent with their lives.  Well thought out and crafted daily routines offer families a little slice of peace in their often hectic lives by minimizing the thought that goes into the routine tasks of everyday life and the nervousness of feeling like there is too much to do. 

When creating your family’s routines it is important to remember not all families are created equal and what works for one family may not work for another.  For daily routines to be effective, families need to pay attention to their own unique needs and family rhythm and develop routines that compliment their needs.  Simply copying your neighbor’s system won’t work and will eventually lead parents and kids down a path of frustration and abandonment. 

So how do families go about creating their routines?  Here are some suggestions to get you started:

• Do a Brain Dump - Sit down and do a brain dump of all the routine tasks that need to get done every day for every family member.  Keep things like housework and yard work off the list for right now.  Life will not come to an end if the floor doesn’t get vacuumed, but your son showing up at school without his lunch or having no clean underwear to wear can be a problem.  Stick to daily critical tasks of getting yourselves off to school or work and living from day to day.  We will cover housework and yard work at a different time. 
• Write It Down - Parents are way too busy to rely on their aging memories to keep track of their daily routines, so be sure to write them down.  Where you write them will be unique to each family.   Some families will choose to write them on their family calendar or in their planners.  Others will choose to keep them posted on the kitchen refrigerator, family bulletin board, or paperwork organizer.  Still others will choose to program them into their electronic calendars.  The choice is yours, but be sure to use a system that compliments your current system for keeping track of family obligations.  Adding an entire new system will only lead to confusion.   To make this easier for your family, use one of these daily routine templates as inspiration.  We have provided them in the standard PDF format for easy duplication as well as in a Microsoft Word format to make it easier for families to customize them for their individual needs. 
  • Daily Routine Templates - PDF Format
  • Daily Routine Templates - Word Format
• Accommodate Your Family’s Natural Rhythm - When crafting your daily routines be cognizant of your family’s natural rhythm.  For example, most parents and children have a particular time of day when they are their freshest and most effective.  Structure your routines to make the most of your best time.  If you become brain dead by 7′oclock every night then front load your routines for earlier times in the day and make them less intensive in the evening. 
• Be Flexible - Your family’s routines will evolve over time and won’t be perfect the first time you use them, so be flexible and willing to make changes.   Also, the routine will most likely need adjusting as families make the transition from structured school days to the more relaxed days of the summer.   Just remember to keep copies of your school year and summer routines so that you don’t have to rethink them when kids go back to school. 

Good daily routines will help families gain better control of their lives by making the recurring tasks of daily family life more manageable and a little less overwhelming.  Eventually after your family has been using them for a while you will find little need to even look at your routines.  They will just become habit and ingrained in your lives.  Good luck!

I Have Work To Do

What I Think I Know - A monthly tongue in cheek commentary of things I’ve learned (or so I think)….

Growing up, my mother set the tone for the entire family.  When Mom wasn’t happy, no one was happy.  Even if her unhappiness didn’t have anything to do with us kids, it still made us feel bad.  We weren’t old enough, mature enough, or self-aware enough to understand that our mother was a real person who had feelings, interests, hopes, and dreams outside of her children, so when she was upset we internalized her unhappiness and often ended up feeling bad and responsible. 

Now don’t get me wrong, my mother was a wonderful person and mother.  She worked her fingers to the bone to provide all of us kids with college educations, love, support, and strong values.  But with all of the pressure she felt to provide for and raise her children she sometimes got unhappy and yes even grumpy.  And today, as I am raising my children and I am facing many of the same worries and challenges, I finally understand how one bad day or unhappy moment can affect my kids even when I don’t mean for it to happen. 

While writing the article How Will Your Kids Remember You, I decided to find out what my girls thought of me, so I asked them this question:  “How would you describe me to a friend or teacher that didn’t know me?”  Some of their answers I expected, some of them surprised me, and some of them hurt a little.  But what I found really interesting was the one I didn’t hear but expected to hear.  Not one of them would describe me as happy….

I guess I have work to do because I really want them to know and remember me as happy.

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