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Embracing Routines: How (Part 2) · 5–Minute Parenting: Tips to Help You Raise Competent, Godly Kids.

• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Five Minute Parenting.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Today I have my guest back from last week, Trisha Poole, and she's going to be sharing the second half of Embracing Routines.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: How?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if you remember, Trish is a homeschooling parent of six children in grades seven, eight, six, seven, eight, ten, eleven, twelve.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And she's been homeschooling her children since they were in kindergarten.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And she believes that a school customized to the individual student is one of the great strengths of homeschooling.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if you haven't listened to last week's, check her wisdom and insight on embracing routines, why you should do that.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And today she's going to be sharing on embracing routines how to do that.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome back, Trish, and we're excited to hear more about routines from you.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much, Sandra.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: I am super excited to continue our discussion on routines today.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to talk about the how, and it's going to be brief, but we're going to cram a lot of good information, I hope, in here so that you can understand how establishing simple routines can just make a really big difference in your home.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think the key to establishing routine is understanding your priorities first.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: What is most important to you?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: To your spouse, to the training of your children, to the orderliness of your home.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Once you've sort of wrestled through what's most important to you, and I think probably many parents have already done that, are already in that process.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: So once you're we've got a priority or two outlined, you can get started with routine.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to share a few ways that we've created routines to help us live out our priorities.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: One of our priorities as homeschoolers is to get school started at a reasonable hour.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's so easy to just let the day uh flutter away and all of a sudden it's 11 o'clock and we haven't started school.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's important for us to complete school each day.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's a priority.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it and having a starting time helps us not only accomplish school, but move on to other activities in the afternoon.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have chosen nine o'clock as our school start time.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we have we actually have two times in the day.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: One is at nine o'clock and one is at six o'clock.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to kind of talk about how we create routine around these times in our day.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then the middle of our day is um not a ton of scheduled, hard structure as far as it depends in the home.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so if this is our priority to begin school at nine o'clock, then uh one of our other priorities is to um train our children in life skills.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so we attempt through routine of morning checklists to help marry and accomplish these priorities.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: So each day before nine o'clock school start time, we ask the kids to be dressed, to have their teeth brush, to complete a pre-assigned morning chore, and eat breakfast.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: When they were young, they would check their tasks off on a checklist that hung in the dining room.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And part of the way we trained them to make these tasks a priority is that we told them when all of their tasks were completed and checked off, then we would know that they were ready for breakfast.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: If they didn't complete their chores before the appointed time, then they didn't have breakfast.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And we use stated expectations, consistent and careful explanations to help our kids understand that what we expect and what the natural consequence, not having time for breakfast, would be if they didn't follow through with their responsibilities.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And all of these things together set reasonable expectations, they foster independence, and they help our kids with life skills like cleaning up, managing their time, and personal hygiene.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we've done it simply by having them complete a few morning items on their own timeline with lots of repeated daily practice.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I call that a routine.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: One way we want to live out a priority in our house, I'm going to move on to another priority, which is to manage the mess that we create as we live in our house all day.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm at home with my kids all day and we eat uh three meals a day in our house.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: We use school, there are school books all over, and there are toys and Legos, all kinds of stuff.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: By the time we get to six o'clock at night, which is dinner time, it is, it can be really messy in my house.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Even with older kids, it can be extremely messy.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, one of the ways we have fostered this managing the mess that we create is that at 5:30, when I'm working on dinner, my kids all work to put our house in order for the evening.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that six o'clock hour is the time my husband comes home from dinner, comes home from work, and the time that we eat dinner as a family around the table.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so our goal for the evening, our priority for the evening is to have family time.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: It often looks like a game around the table.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: It often looks like uh a shared meal around the table.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so, in order to do those things, we have to clear the mess that we've created all day.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so for years, the habit is at 5:30, that's cleanup time.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody knows that routine of just having that marker in place.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: This is the expectation, this is the predictability of the day.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Six o'clock is dinner, 5:30 is cleanup time.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it helps cut down on some of the pushback, some of the quarreling.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now we live in a sinful home, so uh you can know in our home, just like yours, that people still have trouble.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I think having that expectation priority really helps establish, um, really helps establish and lower some of that conflict in our home.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Routines, if used well, can help us live out our priorities.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's your turn now.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: What things are most important to you in your home?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: How can you establish some simple routines to help support or encourage the priorities that you have to be lived out?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Just start with one priority, establish a routine.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: This is really important, consistently live it out.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you'll be encouraged by what a difference a simple routine can make.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then you'll be ready to establish yet another simple routine.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you'll check us out over at homeschooling with confidence.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know Sandra will put the address um hswithconfidence.com in the show notes.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: We have a lot more over there about routines and priorities that we'd love to share with you.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Hop on over and visit us.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, send us an email.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: We'd love to hear from you.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Trish.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Really appreciated your sharing today.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if you enjoyed these two sessions, make sure you check out her website, her business, sign up for her newsletter.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: She is a wealth of information having homeschooled these children since kindergarten.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you again for sharing with us, Trish.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh thank you.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's been great to be here.