More On My Persistent Assistant

I mentioned several days ago that I have a new helper around the house. I took her on board as an experiment but it has worked out lovely so I've decided to keep her. She's a very hard worker and the best part is she's free! Sometimes I have to give her a Dumdum to keep her happy but it's a very small price to pay for her quality of work.

In case you don't know her already, she's my seven year old, Persistent, and she showed amazing organizing superpowers at a very early age but she tends to be just like her Mom most of the time, too lazy to put anything away! We have been fighting about her bedroom for years and even though I have taken some drastic measures it is still a challenge keeping her focused long enough to clean her room.



As most of you know, I have been working very hard this last year to teach my kids how to work and help around the house. My nine year old son has been doing his jobs amazingly well but I was still struggling to keep my daughter working long enough to accomplish anything. I was frustrated by how much supervision she required and I felt like I was spending so much time checking up on her that I couldn't get my own jobs done.

I finally came up with a new plan that I thought would solve all our problems and it has. Since she works well with constant supervision I would give it to her by making her my own personal assistant. Together we are getting so much more accomplished than we did alone and there is no fighting, no reminding. I am loving it!

Victor washes all the dishes every day, takes out the garbage and cleans out the car once a week. That leaves laundry and the rest of the house for Persistence and I to clean. We go through every room together until the whole house is neat. I straighten and she picks up toys and items that don't belong and puts them away. She picks up garbage and moves chairs while I vacuum. While I'm mopping she has a scrubber to get the sticky spots as I go. We fold laundry together and she puts it away while I iron or start another load. Once we are done making the whole house look presentable we focus our efforts on one room for organizing and deep cleaning. You should see us, we are amazing! Seriously, I should sell tickets.

When I explained this new arrangement to Persistence she was not excited. She thought she was going to be doing more jobs and working a lot harder and she was right! But little did she know how much she would enjoy working with me and I enjoy it too. It's fun being a team and seeing what we can accomplish together. The other morning when Persistence woke up she came to me and excitedly asked what room we would be organizing that day. I think I shed a few tears of happiness at that moment.

The moral of this story is to keep trying new things with your kids until you find a system that works. Don't give up!