A family that works together gets a lot more done!
That is a phrase that I coined in that past week (at least as far as I know) and I have been using it a bit lately. It not only sounds good, it has been proven to be true time and time again. Now my @little-peppers are all ages seven and below, but we can still get a lot more done when we pool our talents and abilities, and work within our capabilities.
WORKING TOGETHER
THE BASICS
As you may have seen in the video above, children, even young children, are capable of helping out. I know that many would rather watch television than help do the dishes, but trust me, there can be a lot more to childhood than staring at a smart phone on the couch for four hours a day.
I've worked my way up in a few companies before, so I know a little bit about working with people. One of my favorite jobs was being an assistant manager at a pizza restaurant in New Orleans, but more recently I ran a crew of 76 people in a factory up in Wisconsin. Now that I have a lot of my own work to get done, and a lot of @little-peppers that want to come with me, I can use some of the skills that I learned earlier to streamline the process.
I am currently working on a four part series about being B.L.U.E.R. and using some of the things that you will see in the video above and the photos below, so for the scope of this post I will just cover the work aspect of things.
GIVE SPECIFIC DIRECTIONS, PROVIDE INCENTIVE, & MAKE IT FUN
There were two basic jobs that were child-worthy while I was running the angle blade on the tractor to scrape our driveway yesterday. One job was picking rocks and the other was dealing with the topsoil that we scraped up. Since I had three @little-peppers with me, I threw a goat in the mix to spice things up.
As I explain things below, you will see how the goat helps provide incentive and keeps it fun for my children.
JOB 1 - FILLING BUCKETS WITH TOPSOIL
Topsoil from the forest floor can be a valuable resource that I did not want to go to waste. Since I do not have a tractor of my own or a bucket scoop to pick it up with, I fill five gallon buckets with it so it is broken up into manageable-sized portions that I can carry and load into my trailer.
First the children use a small pitchfork to fill a bucket halfway.
A half bucket is a manageable size for a child to carry out of the way. This little guy, Monster Truck, is four years old.
Then the children fill a second bucket half way as well, and carry it over. Now they can dump the second bucket into the first to provide the finished product of a full bucket of topsoil for me, all without having to carry a full bucket themselves. Once they have a full bucket, they move on to job two.
JOB 2 - PICKING ROCKS
Many a child raised on a farm can tell you stories about picking rocks. I guess that it comes with the life. I have certainly heard some from @grandpa-pepper in my time. This is not the most entertaining or fun job, but not all work is.
Any rocks that are small enough for children to carry they are to move to the sides of the driveway. Larger ones are placed on piles, and the really big ones I move myself.
Smaller rocks are picked up by the armload. Just look at how many this little guy had. He is definitely not being lazy about this.
The smaller rocks are placed into buckets so that I do not have to pick them up again, and so they are in convenient quantities for me to move later. There is no specific goal to reach for this job. The first job determined the rate of rotation, so when the child doing job one finishes their bucket of topsoil, they move to job two and relieve the child who had been picking rocks, who then moves on to job three.
JOB 3 - HANGING OUT WITH A GOAT
Some of you may be wondering about this "job." Is the goat going to be used as a "lawn mower" to clear other areas of the land? No, mostly the goat is just to add something cute, fun, and less labor intensive into the mix.
Chances are that this is the "job" that the children will really want to be doing. This goat is a new one that @bluerthangreen and @allforthegood got, and we are watching it, alone with their other animals while they are out of town. This adds a novelty aspect to the job too, since it is a new animal and new experience for my @little-peppers.
When the child who is done picking rocks gets relieved, they some over to take the leash for the goat, and the child who was holding the goat has to go fill another bucket of topsoil.
If the children really want to have another turn with the goat, it is going to inspire them to get that bucket filled as quickly and efficiently as they can. If each child has this same drive, then @papa-pepper gets a lot more buckets of topsoil and a lot more rocks picked in a shorter amount of time.
It also adds a time of rest and relaxation into the mix for the @little-peppers. They have not been sentenced to 18 years of hard labor. They are children. I think that we worked for less than an hour yesterday as a group like this, but I was impressed with the amount of work that we got done.
Amazingly, all three of them asked if we could do it again today! Think about that folks! Now @papa-pepper does not have a lot of experience raising children, but I do have a lot of incentive to do a great job. I think that if you look at this example, you may find some wisdom. Thanks for checking it out!
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-of-family-working-together
Until next time…
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