The value of work

Do your children have chores? Do you work on family projects together?

Here is my personal experience with work in family life.

My Dad was a home builder and had a concrete company all of my life. So all growing up my five brothers and I would help him. We worked HARD.  I was probably the only girl at my school who knew anything about this kind of work.  But the joy of seeing the finished project when all our work was done was so worth it. I learned the value of hard work. I learned that hard work pays off, to never give up before a job is finished, and to always put in my best work. I learned to love doing hard things. We always worked together and I feel that this time strengthened our family bond. On top of working with my Dad and brothers, I also learned to cook and clean around the house with my Mom. I didn't always love cleaning up after my five messy brothers. But I did it and am a better person for it.

We also worked on a cattle ranch for a few years. I absolutely loved every minute of it. I dream of having a ranch/farm one day.

At the present time I have three young children, their ages are 6, 5, and 2. We live in a sub division so we don't have the opportunity of having chickens and animals to take care of, which is so good for teaching your children responsibility. I have to be creative when it comes to teaching my kids how to work hard. Sometimes I don't give them enough credit and I should make them do more than I have them do. I have just started having my 5 and 6 year olds do harder chores. Even though it is usually easier to do things myself it is so important to let the kids do them. This chart seems pretty accurate of what children can do at certain ages. My 5 and 6 year old can clean their own rooms, make their beds, put dishes away, switch laundry, help fold and put their laundry away.  I have started having all the kids wipe down the doors, walls, and base boards and they actually think its fun so that was a win win. Now I will cross my fingers that they keep thinking it's fun.




This fun chart can be found Here.

      This one can be found Here

Here are a few ideas of what you can do as a family to make chores more organized and fun. A family garden is also such a good idea and so fun to work on as a family.
We just put in a sprinkler system and sod in our back yard this weekend. It was so fun to work on as a family, Grandma and Grandpa even came over and helped. The kids had their little ways of helping. Now we can enjoy the beautiful grass and be proud that we did this work as a family.

Family work can also teach our children to love and serve one another just as Jesus Christ did. Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, "The divine attributes of love, mercy, patience, submissiveness, meekness, purity,..cannot be developed in the abstract. These require the clinical experiences...Nor can these attributes be developed in a hurry."
Family work can be those clinical experiences that we need. Family work should be consistent, it is humbling and builds true character, shaping us into who we will become.