Comments (0)

By Laura Baker, August 24, 2010

As I cram the last plate into the dishwasher before starting another cycle, I often find myself thinking, “How can this thing can be full again? Just yesterday it was beeping, reminding me to unload it!”

Housework seems to pile up. But, there is hope. Wouldn’t it be nice to have children that contribute around the house without being hassled? And, wouldn’t it be nice if this started as soon as our children learned to walk?

I recently read an article that highlighted several benefits of getting young children to help with housework. The last reason stated, “Most importantly, the child understands that he is part of a community (your family) and that as a member of the community, he needs to share responsibilities to keep the community going.”

We are a community. And, we do need everyone to contribute. This is exactly what we are striving for at our house.

For example, we have practiced secret submarine missions for months as a fun way to teach our boys how to help with the laundry. Our boys zoom the “secret agents” (a.k.a. dirty clothes) into the laundry room and stuff them into the “submarine” (a.k.a the front loading washing machine). Each time, we tell a different story about what mission the “secret agents” are going on. Our clothes get clean, but more importantly we are making jobs around the house fun!

This laundry game quickly became a fun routine for our boys. Recently, my husband and I watched Jackson and Will move the clothes from the washer to the dryer.  After the mission was complete, they each got a high five and an, “All right!” Both of their faces lit up!  We loved watching our boys have fun while working together to complete a task that helped our family.

The next day Will, 22-months-old, scooted his chair over to the silverware drawer. I watched as he put the silverware into the drawer, but not in the correct spots. After the job was complete, he got another high five and another, “All right!” His face lit up again. Once more, he equated helping with love.

Watching Will work on the silverware reminded me that often we train our children not to help. It was tempting for me to respond with, “No, not like that,” or “Get down from there!” And, suddenly, I would have trained Will not to help. This thought brings me to a blog I recently read. The mom wrote, “Learn to let your partner–and your kids–do their jobs creatively the way they can, not just the way you think they should.”

There is plenty of time for me to teach Will that the forks belong in the fork section. But, at 22-months, he has mastered the first step. He can put the silverware into the drawer. And, in the process, he has an opportunity to feel good about himself and his contribution to our family.

Not only do our children’s contributions reduce our workload (although, in the short term it takes longer when we let our children help!), these contributions are also invaluable for our children’s development.  Our children learn important life lessons, while at the same time they learn how to be an important part of a group.

So, here is to giving up some of the control, to making contributions FUN, and to getting everyone involved! And maybe, just maybe, my grown boys won’t greet me with their dirty laundry when they come home to visit.

Here are several examples of how parents who have taken the Early Childhood Parenting Made Fun!™ course with High Five Parenting are creating little helpers around the house:

Modeling

• One mom modeled by using what Love and Logic calls “eaves drop value setting.” When she knew her child could overhear her, she whispered, “Dad, the kids were so helpful today. They dusted the living room and wiped the windows. The best part was that it didn’t take as long to clean because we worked as a team. We even had extra time to play.”

Choices within Limits

• One dad asked his child, “Are you going to bring the groceries in from the car or put them into the pantry?”

Make The Task Fun!

• Many parents pretend the dust buster or vacuum is a pet, give it a name, and then let their child see how much ‘the pet’ can eat.

Chores aren’t quite as daunting when we slow down and have some fun with our children and with the tasks.

LEARN MORE

High Five Parenting offers the Love and Logic Early Childhood Parenting Made Fun!™ course throughout the Austin area, including Cedar Park, Pflugerville, and Westlake. The course is a five week program that focuses on children from birth through age six. We explore effective skills to help parents raise respectful, responsible kids and lower parenting stress. Private courses are also available. To view course locations or to learn more about High Five Parenting, please visit www.highfiveparenting.com.

SPECIAL OFFER

Visit www.highfiveparenting.com to register for the course. Use coupon code LHH to receive $10 off course registration. Offer expires 12/31/10.

Article written by Laura Baker, Independent Facilitator, Love and Logic Early Childhood Parenting Made Fun!™

Comments (0)

By Laura Baker, August 17, 2010

When I think about characteristics I hope my children possess, words such as honest, faithful, compassionate, intelligent, open-minded, responsible, funny, and optimistic come to mind.  My most recent addition to the list is the word CONTRIBUTOR.  I hope that my children learn how to lend a hand when someone is in need and how to step up and work to solve difficult problems.

But, how do I create a little contributor?  With a few Love and Logic techniques I will be on my way to creating a contributor within our community.

CREATING HELPERS IN THE COMMUNITY

Love and Logic teaches that, “Learning happens quickly when parents model, offer choices, and make a task fun.”  By doing these three things, we can teach young children the value of helping within the community.

Modeling

• Talking to your spouse when your child can overhear, say something like, “I signed up to volunteer at the soup kitchen today. It makes me feel so good to know that I am helping someone out.”

• Thinking out loud to yourself, say something like, “I am going to go look around my room and find some things that I would like to donate to a family that doesn’t have as much as we do.  It feels so good to give to someone in need.”

Choices within Limits

• Look at the Little Helping Hands event calendar with your child.  Say something like, “Look at all these fun ways to help people in our community.  Would you like to help clean up the park or make sandwiches for other families?”

• Ask your child, “Would you like to donate these blocks or these cars to children?”

Make the Task Fun!

• Sign up for a Little Helping Hands event. Little Helping Hands is an incredible resource, full of fun events for young children.  Children will be eager to lend a hand when they see just how much fun it can be!

These are just a few simple tools we can use to get kids thinking about other people in our community. We cover these techniques in detail in the Love and Logic Early Childhood Parenting Made Fun! course. We also apply these techniques to help us avoid power struggles such as brushing teeth, mealtime, bedtime, picking up toys and more.

LEARN MORE

High Five Parenting offers the Love and Logic Early Childhood Parenting Made Fun!™ course throughout the Austin area, including Cedar Park, Pflugerville, and Westlake.  The course is a five week program that focuses on children from birth through age six.  We explore effective skills to help parents raise respectful, responsible kids and lower parenting stress.  Private courses are also available.  To view course locations or to learn more about High Five Parenting, please visit www.highfiveparenting.com.

SPECIAL OFFER

Visit www.highfiveparenting.com to register for the course.  Use coupon code LHH to receive $10 off course registration. Offer expires 12/31/10.

Article written by Laura Baker, Independent Facilitator, Love and Logic Early Childhood Parenting Made Fun!™

Comments (0)

By Marissa Vogel, July 28, 2010

That’s a really good question and like most good questions, there is never a straight forward answer. I get asked this frequently and often comment that if you’re asking me, you’re likely ready or very close to it. I don’t know about most parents, but I didn’t think much about anything except sleep when my children were both under 3 and it seems that only after they were out of diapers and I could watch them with just one eye, that I started thinking about introducing them to volunteering.

Nevertheless, I think it’s really never too early to start family volunteering. For example, we’ve had activities like park clean-ups where parents bring a backpack carrier to hold their less than 1-year old, or an assembly project where a mom wore a Baby Bjorn or brought a stroller while baby brother was sleeping during an activity. But for actual participation, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. My initial thoughts were at 4 years of age, but over the past year we’ve had several 2- and 3-year old children participate in our activities. And in most cases, these young children always surprise me. The focus they have is amazing and you can see a sense of accomplishment when they’re done. I think even their parents walk away impressed with their child’s abilities.

I’ll never forget the first time we took a group in to help breakdown computers for the Goodwill GreenWorks program. We had several young children, including a 3-year old, sign up to join our volunteer group. As I observed our young children start to disassemble the computers, I was already thinking to myself that I might need to put an age restriction to 8 years and up as I envisioned children getting frustrated or bored with the activity and instead running around the facilities checking out areas that they shouldn’t be exploring. But this wasn’t the case. In fact, it was quite the opposite. For a solid hour, the work area was quiet with no sounds except the pops and clicks of computers being taken apart. The children were focused and seemed to enjoy working with their parents to take apart the computers. They were intrigued by the different components in a computer and seemed challenged enough to finish one and move on to another.

As we all know, every child is different. Some may be ready sooner than others. But if you think your child is ready then try it and see what happens. If it doesn’t work and they don’t seem engaged enough you can always try again later, or perhaps a different volunteer activity might interest them more. Sometimes it takes a few times for a child to start understanding what they’re doing and they’re probably understanding more than you think. Family volunteering is not only about the hands-on activity itself and of course the ultimate beneficiary of the work being done, but an opportunity for children regardless of their age to observe the most important role models in their lives who can provide the best examples of helping others — family.

Comments (0)

By Marissa Vogel, July 14, 2010

I was fortunate enough to get an opportunity to be on Fox 7’s Good Day Austin this morning and had the pleasure to talk with them about balancing motherhood and a career.  It really made me think about what our family needs to do everyday to make it work .  It’s not easy, but it’s do-able.

I spoke about the need to multitask and it dawned on me while  leaving the studio that one of the big benefits of family volunteering is it allows parents to do just that.  By going out as a family and volunteering you accomplish many things simultaneously — spending quality time with your children, learning about issues outside your own personal world, helping the community, meeting new people, developing your child’s skill sets (and maybe even yours),  and most importantly, it provides an opportunity to discuss real issues with your children that impact our community and how we can help.  Why is this important? Because we still have homelessness, hunger, unemployment, political strife, and other community needs.  But what if we started engaging our children in these conversations and educating them early on to some of the important causes so close to home.  Might it be possible that one day they might have a solution?  Anything is possible.

As parents our lives are crazy busy.  I feel it everyday, but that’s reality. With all the school and sports activities as well as weekend obligations, I know it begs the  thought, “I just can’t add another thing to our schedule.”  And this may be the case, but with all the benefits family volunteering can bring to your home life, perhaps it’s worth  incorporating into your family routine.

Comments (0)

By Marissa Vogel, July 6, 2010

We just hit our 700th vote and as I do the celebratory jig around the room I stop for a minute to think about why our relentless pursuit to stay in the top 200 these past couple of weeks in the Chase Community Giving program is so important for our organization. The potential of getting $20,000 is the obvious of course, but I’m reminded of why all funding we receive is important to pursuing our cause.

The Austin Business Journal recently reported that Austin ranks low for volunteering. We rank number 36 of 51 metro areas according to the annual Volunteering in America report put out by the Corporation for National Community Service. Furthermore, we rank lower than number40 for both young adults and teenagers volunteer rate listings. What’s puzzling is you would expect Austin to be ranked high since since we have a higher number of non-profits per 1,000 city residents than the national average and typically cities with more nonprofits per capita tend to volunteer more. Moreover, the ABJ reports that cities like Austin with lower-than-average poverty and unemployment and higher-than-average education rates tend to volunteer more. But this isn’t the case. Texas as a whole ranked 40th of of all states.

Of course there are likely many reasons for our low ranking in volunteerism amongst young adults and teenagers, but I can’t help but think that perhaps if we started early on with our children and included a regular routine of community service throughout their adolescence then maybe we would not rank so low. And if we could expand these volunteer opportunities to families outside Austin into other Texas communities, what would happen over time?

Yes, this is one reason we should keep pursuing the growth of our organization within Austin, outside of Austin, and to be a advocate for fostering volunteerism in early childhood through family volunteering. Anyone ready to hit 1,000 votes?

Voting instructions available at littlehelpinghands.org.  Voting ends July 12 at 11:59 pm.

Comments (1)

By Marissa Vogel, June 29, 2010

Today marks our first anniversary as a nonprofit organization so it seems only fitting that we publish our first blog post on this day of accomplishment.  If you’ve been following us you know that we’ve been growing steadily over the past year thanks to our amazing partners and family volunteers. Our vision is dependent on both groups and we are fortunate to live in an community that embraces educating our children in early childhood on the important role volunteerism plays in our everyday life and how it impacts the lives of others.

Last week my 5-yr old daughter accompanied me to volunteer at the Goodwill store on Lamar along with 3 other families. She was so proud as this was her 4th time volunteering at a Goodwill store and has enjoyed picking up the hanger markers that often fall to the floor which shoppers can easily slip on so they need to be picked up on a regular-basis.  I can see a sense of accomplishment as she displays her basket full of green and red “donuts” as they call them by the time our volunteer hour is up.  Going to the Goodwill store always reminds me of the time my then 6 year-old daughter had seen a man at the corner with a sign that said, “Looking for a job”.  As we were waiting at the light, she piped up from the back seat and said, “He should go to Goodwill”.  Not making the connection yet, I asked her what she meant and she added, “They help people find jobs. We should tell him”.  We then talked about how I should probably have some Goodwill information in the car so that we could easily give it to people we see who might be looking for work. It was a great moment for me as I realized that she understood how Goodwill helped others and how we can take a role in helping others who are down on their luck.  More importantly, it was a conversation starter about joblessness and gave us the opportunity to explore it further together.  I don’t know if my just telling her about it would have made as much of an impact as her having the opportunity to make the connection herself through our time spent volunteering at Goodwill. And more importantly, how she could make a difference – even an indirect one like helping out on the sales floor at Goodwill.

I invite your own “aha” moments you’ve had volunteering with your children and hope this blog can serve as a forum and resource for others looking to foster community service within their own families.  Thanks for a great year Austin!

Comments (0)

By Marissa Vogel, May 18, 2010

Welcome to our blog! We are working on more stories, so please check back soon!