There are many different things that you can do as a stay at home mom as you raise your children. The options can be overwhelming. And when you throw homeschooling into the mix, things get even more complicated. Because of this, I think it's important to have a clear picture of what goals your are shooting for with your children.
Having these goals in mind will impact, among other things, how you discipline your children, how you spend your time, and how you spend your money. Although we are not able to take all of the credit (or at times all of the blame) for how our children turn out, the Lord has given us a tremendous responsibility in shaping our children.
Some of the goals for my children are to grow to love the Lord, understand what it means to love and show respect to others, and to be responsible and productive citizens. As I mentioned earlier, those goals strongly influence the way I make decisions in our home and how I help guide the kids.
So for tip Tuesday, I thought I’d share something I started before our oldest learned to read: teaching your kids how to sort laundry. I think it’s never to early to learn to be a helper and have family responsibilities.
All I did was purchase an $10-$15 laundry hamper at Walmart and tie on cards to help the kids know which hamper their clothes go in. For my non-readers, I tried to help them by color coding the cards. Red for dark clothes, yellow for lights, and white for whites. (I have a separate hamper for jeans and rags – especially since we farm.)
After some repeated guidance and re-explaining, they were soon sorting their own laundry. As an added benefit, I found that it gave way to some good beginning reading lessons. And it also helped my husband know which hamper I would like things in!
Rebecca Book is a stay at home wife and mom. She has been married to her husband, Ethan, for 10 years. They have 4 children, which they home school: Caleb – age 7, Hannah – age 5, Isaac – age 2, and Jonathan – 6 months. Together they run a pasture based farm with grass-fed heritage beef, pasture/wood lot heritage pork, grass-fed lamb, and pastured poultry.
Becca and Ethan have kept blogs The Beginning Farmer's Wife, and The Beginning Farmer describing their experience of starting their farm and having a frugal lifestyle. They still update their blogs when opportunity allows, but now they primarily focus much of their Internet time on managing their farming business, Crooked Gap Farm.
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