Morning High Five

I am in the beginning stages of creatinv systems to help my kids be more independently responsible. With so many little people underfoot, I'm finding it very difficult to check up on kids in a timely fashion to make sure they've completed assigned jobs. I don't have an answer for that yet (except, perhaps, just give everyone another year to get older before I stress out over it), but I do have one system in place for Levi that seems to be working.

Several years ago, I followed a blog called Life as Mom. (I don't regularly read blogs anymore, except for this one.) I vaguely remembered her posting about their "morning high five" -- five chores to be completed before their homeschooling day began.Without even referring to the original blog to see what hers contained, I made Levi his own "morning high five" chart with the five responsibilities he needs to take care of before coming downstairs in the morning.

Nothing fancy: just the two minutes it took me to trace my hand and jot down his chores. It's taped to the wall above his lightswitch.

Levi's morning responsibilities include:

1. Make bed (I don't make the other kids make their beds yet, a combination of being too short and bunk beds. But if he doesn't make his, then his blankets are falling onto Toby's trundle bed and in the way during nap time. Also, he's the only kid whose blankets end up in a huge ball every morning!)

2. Get dressed. I set clothes out every night (or sometimes I do a week at a time in an organizer in his closet). None of my children are interested in choosing their own clothes yet, which is fine by me.

3. Brush teeth. He has his toothbrush and kid-friendly toothpaste [my kids hate mint] in a jar in my bathroom for this purpose. It only took me seven years to get ONE of my children brushing his teeth twice a day. Nobody else is self-sufficient in this, and I can't seem to get myself downstairs after breakfast to do the others!

4. Gather clothes (out of the bathroom). Levi shares a room with Toby, who goes to bed 45 minutes earlier. When Levi goes to bed, he changes in to jammies in my bathroom, but can't really put away his clothes because Toby's sleeping. So he's responsible for getting yesterday's clothes off the floor of my bathroom in the morning.

5. Turn off white noise machine. We started using this to help Toby sleep, but in reality it helps Levi sleep through Toby's nighttime awakenings. Levi's always the last person up, so it's his job to turn it off.

After one particularly grumpy morning, I added "cheerful attitude" to the palm. Levi is not a morning person any more than I am (as in, NOT AT ALL), so I've allowed him the option to stay in his room a little longer if he needs to be alone before facing the day. It helps (him AND me).

The best part about this, besides getting the jobs done, is that all I have to do every morning is say, "high five?" And he answers "high five!" and we high five and then I know he's done his morning jobs without having to nag or investigate. Sometimes he'll say "oops" and scurry back upstairs, but I didn't have to remind him of anything in particular. It's a small step for the household, but a good solid first step for the first kid!