I have been blessed with a few private phone calls this week but now am running short on time. In regards to a chat I had with another blogger (Hello Amy!) I threw together my thoughts on resistance from kids and what is at the heart of it. Here is my best shot:
Many moms make a stab at a order, experience resistance, and mistakenly assume that this is what they can expect forever after. They have visions of having to set themselves up as joyless taskmasters demanding compliance from children who are secretly (or overtly) churning with resentment. Assuredly it need not be so and here is why. It is not that we have an aversion to order itself, it is that we gravitate towards what we are predisposed to doing. CM said “Habit is ten natures.” Truer words were never spoken. The more we repeat an action the more we are inclined to…… repeat that action. Repetition also brings ease. No longer must one think through each step of the process. Those steps become automatic. Habit becomes our servant and propels us to success. Any task that becomes old hat is no longer the effort it was initially.
If you generally overlook piles of dirty clothes or allow toys to remain on the floor at day’s end then visit your kids with the occasional disgusted outburst about mess you will most certainly be met with equal indignance. They will look at you as if to say Hello? Who are you and what have you done with my mother? They will resent the intrusion upon their routine (and they do have a routine whether it was by design or developed by default). There will be conflict if this is a one-time intrusion upon their status quo.
Like I shared with Amy, some years back I read an analogy that changed my position on establishing some routine in our lives. The author asked how the reader to consider how they would respond if their pastor (insert priest, rabbi, etc) held services at 9am one Sunday, 7am the next, and 11am the third? If the services were held randomly you would likely become extremely frustrated and annoyed. This helped me to see things through my children’s eyes. They needed to know what to expect or they were going to respond with the same annoyance that I would under those circumstances.
It doesn’t have to be that way however. Working on one habit at a time you can ease us into order peacefully. Begin with something small. Decide what your priority is and insist upon it – gently, sweetly but firmly. Post it on the fridge. Do the children routinely wander from the table leaving it full of dishes? Unless this doesnt annoy you in the least that would be a good place to start. Explain exactly what one should do at the end of a meal – remove your plate and utensils, scrape waste, stack on the counter etc. Remember you get what you inspect so if you have this discussion once and retreat to the computer when the meal is over you can pretty much expect things to carry on as before. It takes three weeks on average to establish a habit. So that means for the coming weeks you will need to be right there with them after meals walking them through the new routine.
It will be exponentially easier as the days and weeks go by. We don’t react with shock and amazement over daily occurences. We react that way to that which is out of the ordinary. Eventually, assuming the norm is reasonable, we become accustomed to our routine and it can be accomplished expeditiously and with minimal effort. As Charlotte says:
What we have practice in doing we can do with ease, while we bungle over that in which we have little practice.”
Bungle is my new favorite word. : ) We bungle in this instance not because some order is a bad thing but because intermittant order is a shock to the senses and the children (and us often!) are not in the habit or orderliness. Once we are, it really is smooth sailing most days.
In addition to your consistency, your demeanor will also be decisive in determining how your children will react. If you whine, plead, or employ sarcasm you can and ought to expect the same in return. Children generally respond in kind to the behavior of those around them. We must be what we wish them to be because that in fact is what they are becoming daily as they watch us model behavior for them. Are we inconsistent? Irritable? We should not be surprised when we see these traits in our kids. On the other hand if we are respectful, calm, and responsible, we have every reason to expect that our children will be those things as well and that any conflict will be short term at most. So take heart and don’t get discouraged before you even start.
Unless we change the direction we are heading, we might end up where we are going.
Chinese Proverb
Starry Sky Journal 
Awesome post!
This was great! I long for the sort of orderly home you describe but sometimes feel overwhelmed when it comes to getting started. The kids don’t like big overhauls either, just as you stated in your entry.
Thanks so much for sharing your ideas.
Thank you Kim, the Lord surely used you to clearly state what has been a problem for years in our home…I will try to change one thing at a time and stop my whining. Thanks!
Thank you, yet again, Kim! And waving hi back at you. 🙂 These are things I have read, but for whatever reason have hesitated to put into practice. FWIW, my reasons are usually noble, but misguided – like, “the kids are getting along and writing a story together, and I have things I could get done like the laundry, so I’ll just let them go along like this” – when really, what we had PLANNED to do was clean up, or do math, or whatever. The kids It was very hard NOT to do this a few months ago when the baby had all day colic – but he is so much better now and I need to get back on track. (LOL, and as my oldest just reminded me by doing this – she always picks C when I say “Do you want to do A or B?” or even “We’re doing A”. I’m guilty of occasionally letting her do ‘C’ if it seems reasonable – but she is definitely the kind of child who takes 10 miles when given an inch! And being my oldest and a ring leader – she takes everyone down the path with her, while I stare open mouthed and wonder what happened to my family, LOL!)
Thank you for taking the time to write this. I’m saving it to reread later!
I’m an occasional/regular reader but have never posted before. I could have written the first three comments above, one of which is yours! My (lone) dd among 5 brothers is just like your description of your dd, she is extremely ADD-ish, and add to that very lazy. My dh is a hard worker, while I have a lazy bent (certainly partly due to pg but not only) but in reality do work a lot too. My dh tends to sarcasm, I tend to irritability. What chance do we have really? Sigh…..
My brother and SIL homeschool their 8 children and they are hard-working and obedient (but normal) children. (I don’t like to say normal but I know some people think that if children are obedient they must be repressed – you are not one I am sure, though.) I feel quite depressed with my failures, next to them. However reading your post, I had to encourage myself about the thing at a time that we here HAVE been working and progressing on. As I continue this process, would you consider posting sometime about what you think we could do about lazy children without much drive? My ds thinks that playing Runescape for 8 years will guarantee him a $12,000/mo job with the Runescape company. I guess he has really heard that somewhere! There is hope for him – he does listen when we talk to him about goals, etc, and has actually of his own initiative taken a week off Runescape.
I digress. I want to thank you SOOOO much for your latest series of posts about order, resistance, etc. Perfect for me, an ADD-ult who needs such a succinct overview….thank you, thank you!
Just know Natalia that I never ever write except out of our my experiences here. We are very familiar with those letters and other ones too. While diagnoses such as these make structure and order a challenge they also demand those very things to be managed well
. These kids (and their moms….) need to be able to fall back on regularity. They are easily overstimulated and can be especially sensitive to chaos. It is well worth your effort to stay the course.
Everyday will not be perfect. Many days will not be perfect, Shoot, few days will be PERFECT but they will be ever so much better when you continually, gently, sweetly steer back to the ‘way we do things’. It is comforting and restful to little people who are in turmoil inside. Breaking things down into easily memorized steps is a kindness for those who struggle with stimuli. It helps distractable moms keep productive too.
Great post, and oh, so true! Hard to do, because there are so many, many areas in our lives that need attention and order to one extent or another. Persistance, persistance… And knocking them off one at a time.
What a wonderful post. I have been really struggling with accomplishing anything in our homeschool days lately and I am very aware that the problem is our lack of structure. I am also aware that the responsibility lies with me. Thank you for “speaking” the words I needed to hear.
Thank you for your reply. More wonderful direction.
Have a lovely week.