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mama2many
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| Posted: July 09 2011 at 7:24pm | IP Logged
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Can you tell I need help?? Prayers as well
ANyway, Have y'all used "Managers of Their Homes"
It's not Catholic, but it is a Christian family, homeschooling since 1985 with 8 kids, so they might have a few things figured out better than I in the planning!!
I need help in this.. I feel like we're struggling, we're NOT the family we're being called to be, and I long for the skills to get there.
So, before I buy "yet another book", please tell me, thoughts? Advice? A better resource?
Thank you!
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pmeilaen
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| Posted: July 10 2011 at 10:53pm | IP Logged
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I used it and I have found it helpful, but a little bit too strict. It's a good place to start, though.
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Eva
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zookeeper9
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| Posted: July 10 2011 at 11:27pm | IP Logged
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I would also look into a Mother's Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot. She IS Catholic. She has basically written a MOTH for us.
Both have great points in helping you set up a schedule, both can be too strict and not help, but it is a splace to start.
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Donna
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zookeeper9
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| Posted: July 10 2011 at 11:33pm | IP Logged
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You are also asing for advice so I will tell you what helped me.
I set what I call "anchor times." These are times that certain things always happen and everything else revolved around these times.
My anchor times are wake up time, meal times and bed times for the children. Then I take the blocks of time between them an make sure certain routines get done.
For example between wake up time and breakfast I am dressed, morning prayers are done, and basic morning chores are done.
After breakfast, the kitchen is cleaned up and school work is done until lunch time.
After lunch school work is finished up, afternoon chores are done and free time happens.
After dinner and before bed, the evening routine is done, final cleanup of the house and family prayer is said.
After the children are in bed DH and have our time before our bedtime.
This is what has worked for my family to get a basic schedule in place that doesn't stress us out. From there we went and developed our routines using FlyLady as a basis to make sure the housework gets done.
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Donna
Wife to Richard (25 years)
Mom to Liz (21), Mandy (19), Douglas (14), Becky (13), Emma (13), Patrick (13), Abby (6), Maggie (6), and Marian (6)
Plus one saint in heaven Andrew 1/22-7/5/2005
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jawgee
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| Posted: July 11 2011 at 12:10am | IP Logged
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zookeeper9 wrote:
I would also look into a Mother's Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot. She IS Catholic. She has basically written a MOTH for us.
Both have great points in helping you set up a schedule, both can be too strict and not help, but it is a splace to start. |
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I agree. A Mother's Rule of Life is an excellent resource!
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hylabrook1
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| Posted: July 11 2011 at 7:16am | IP Logged
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MOTH is helpful in looking at one way of doing things, which may or may not work for your family. It's good to recognize what you need/want to get done in a day and to put those things in a reasonable order. Donna's use of "anchors" (which some people call "pegs") is a great way to have a sense of attending to certain things at certain times (-ish). MOTH is very "scheduling" oriented, which I find too rigid. Maybe the people who wrote the book don't adhere to this clock-driven style themselves - I have trouble seeing how anyone could do this consistently with all the little distractions that rightly require our attention in real life. The danger I see, though, is that someone might think that they must do everything in those particular time slots and then would feel like a huge failure when the day doesn't go that way.
My suggestion would be to borrow and look at MOTH (you probably know someone who owns it), look at Mother's Rule of Life, at FlyLady, at books in your library, and at threads here. Take notes, pray about it, be realistic about yourself and your family, and then adapt something that you think would work for you. And it will require semi-frequent tweaking. Also, I have found that changes in routine work best if I focus on one habit or one set of routines at a time. Maybe get the morning or bedtime figured out and implemented before adding another piece to what you're adjusting. I've read that it takes 3 weeks to change a habit, so if you figure out/put into action one thing at a time, you can stick with just that one thing for 3 weeks while you figure out the next thing to work on; it might be less overwhelming that way.
Well, it looks like I commented on way more than you asked about.  I do help something in there is helpful.
Peace,
Nancy
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JodieLyn
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Definatley read A Mother's Rule of Life. I personally wasn't looking for someone to make a schedule for me. So I read it and skipped the chapters on the actual scheduling. And found the book really wonderful in helping me think about things. One of the biggest things for me was that I could use larger blocks of time in a schedule instead of scheduling each individual school subject for instance. I could just block out the parts of the day for "school".. and then within that time have a list of things we'd do. But then I didn't feel trapped or like to pull out my hair figuring out if we needed 20 minutes or 30 minutes for math and which subjects would fit into one of the blocks etc.
So anyway.. I'd read it skipping the chapters on the specific scheduling.. let yourself think over the ideas, figure out some priorities etc. And then if you still want help on the actual scheduling go back and look at it. That way you'll feel less trapped into following the schedule her way.
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TxTrish
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| Posted: July 14 2011 at 1:00pm | IP Logged
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MOTH was life changing for me after child #4.
And FWIW, Mrs. Pierlot states right in Chapter One that MOTH is what 'inspired' her developing her system/'rule'.
I like having a schedule, it works best for my family. That said, we don't have an alarm that sounds every 15/30/ or whatever minutes that means we all switch activites like robotic worker drones.
It more gives us the plan and direction -
For me, seeing it that way and making out the schedule (and seeing what was actually doable in any given 24 hour period and how much garbage and lack of direction ate what time I did have) was what changed the dynamic and suddenly made homeschooling, homemaking and homekeeping all doable for me.
For the kids, they all know who is doing what, when they are doing it and exactly what they are supposed to accomplish on a daily basis.
I concur with Nancy - check out all the options, borrow and read all the books until you can decide what will best work in you family.
Personally, I would have paid double the price for MOTH and it would have been worth every single penny!
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4Real Forums : Planning and Ordering our Days
Topic: Another question from little ol' me
