Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Some fun ways to spend time with your kids are to enjoy being at home together doing house chores. Now, if you're listening to me, I said that's a fun thing. Maybe it's like pulling teeth. I mean, there have been seasons where it's like, is that literally the best you can do? Oh, my goodness. There are so many opportunities for you to show up as a parent when you're doing house chores with your child.
I'm John Fuller, joined by a smiling Dr. Danny Huerta, who has a story, I'm sure. Danny, you lead the parenting team. You know this stuff. I'm sure that you included your kids in chores. Did it ever go south, or was it just like so rewarding? You smile now, like, yeah, that worked out so well. No, it didn't always work out well. I mean, it definitely was an imperfect thing, but it was fun. And what I learned early on was that I needed to slow down
Because there were moments where I was going, man, okay, this is going to really slow everything down. And I was in a hurry. And those moments didn't go so well. And I could see my kids weren't excited to work with me again the next time. Mm-hmm.
So in that learning, I slowed it all down, made sure I carved out some extra time to have them participate in more of the grown-up chore pieces. Let's say gardening or landscaping. When we landscaped our house, our kids were young. They wanted to spend time together, but I needed to get that done.
So it's fun to try to figure out what can I have my son do? What can he help me with? And what can I put him on that won't cause me an extra hour or two of work? He got to use a hammer sometimes when we were putting the edging in. For landscaping? Yeah, when we were putting the edging in and he's doing that or he helped me carry some rocks. I go, hey, let's go. It took longer for sure, but he remembers it. And we look back at the pictures and he looks at those with fondness. He remembers sitting on top of the rock pile and,
And he's a successful landscaper. We should know. That's his business route. No, not really. Right now, he does have a mowing business. Okay. And does some landscaping for them. So maybe, maybe, hey, didn't put that connection before, John. You're welcome. We've enjoyed the outdoors that way together. But inside the house, there have been moments where kids have missed chores or missed other things and they need reminders that, hey, this is just part of being a contributor here in our house. And part of living here is this part of it.
And we have not said, hey, thank you for doing your responsibility. Usually we remind them of it. Then we go, hey, here's the next thing. And we celebrate our times where we've done this well. The kids were excited to do more grown-up things when they were younger. As they've gotten older, we did need to frame it a little differently. At 16, we go, hey, someday you're going to have your own house. And so it's good to learn how to cook.
It's good to learn how to do dishes well. It's good to do laundry. And they had already done aspects of that before, but it made sense in the context of sometime you're going to be doing this on your own. I'm just here to help you out and train you towards that. I'm excited for you. Yeah, that's great. I appreciate that perspective.
Well, let's go ahead and listen to a conversation that Focus President Jim Daly had on his show. He talked with Christy Clover, and they talked about fun memories they each had growing up. You and I both were raised by single-parent moms. We share that background, and it had its difficulties, but obviously...
We were able to overcome that probably from my perspective because of the Lord. So listeners know exactly where that's coming from. But I think he has every child by the scruff of the neck. He wants every child to turn toward him. And I think obviously for you and I, that was his plan. But in that regard, one of the fond memories I have of my mom, she was working two or three jobs. But Sunday night,
She'd make dinner and then she would fold the laundry. Had done the laundry and now it was Sunday night and we'd sit in front of the TV and watch Bonanza. That dates me a little bit. I know Bonanza, right?
But it was just this warm feeling. And I thought of this a moment ago. You know, Bonanza always ends on a high note, right? Haas and the guys, they always solve the problem. They get the bad guy. But think of the mayhem on TV today. And if you sit and fold laundry with your kids on Sunday night, you're going to see NCIS or some criminal aptitude, you know, some criminal doing things they –
It shouldn't do. And you're exposed to a lot more. And that even brings in mayhem. Oh, absolutely. We're exposed to it everywhere we go. I mean, you can't even try to stop the commercials. I mean, I love that we can pause commercials now. But even then, you get like a quick little snippet of some crazy detail. And sometimes it's not like...
you know, a fictional thing. Sometimes it's real life. Like real life is crazy and scary. And we have a lot happening in this world. So people are so quick to, you know, again, kind of attack that era, you know, that TV was all good, but my mom could trust it. She could set me in front of the TV and know that it was generally going to be good. What were the takeaways for you watching your mom as a single mom do the things that needed to be done around the house? And how did that impact?
you. Yeah, what I thought was great is we kind of approached things as a team. And so we would just tackle things. So what I loved is that if things needed to get done on a Saturday, then we just conquered them together. And we were usually side by side doing things, which was really special for us is to have that time together. And that was the weird part for me when I got married, actually, because it was so different.
Like my husband didn't grow up in that environment. His mom took care of everything because she was a stay-at-home mom. And so she did a lot. And so I'm like, hey, we're folding laundry. Don't you want to come and do it with me? And he's like, no, not really. It would be a big help. It would be such a good help. But yeah, and it's so different. And I think it probably changed the way that I approached mothering as well, is that I want my kids to be on the team. I wanted to teach them skills because...
When I launched and was in college, I lived in Australia for a year on my own, and I was fully capable of doing all of the things. And I do see that a lot of times when you have moms do a lot for their kids. And so that's one of my encouragements in the book is to train your children to help out. You don't have to take all of the burden on yourself. And maybe that is an influence of having a single mom.
And right. And I think, you know, again, the acknowledgement to the single parents, both men and women, but for single moms who are working a job full time and then caring for their child or children and then, you know, keeping everything organized as much as possible. Well, Christy addressed ways that kids can help out with chores at the home added to your list that you gave earlier, Danny. How do you encourage parents to...
Help our kids see this is something that is valuable. I mean, you touched on this as we went into the clip. This is valuable. Quit your stinking complaining. And I love the creativity from Christy for sure. You do need to be creative. I think that's the point to this show. You need to figure out the personality of each of your kids and have fun with this. It's going to be imperfect. This isn't a measurement of whether or not you're a good parent.
If you're parenting, you're taking care of certain things. And one of the things is the home. So something I use with my kids, I would say, hey, we have to conquer our home. Our home naturally goes towards disorder. And it's not just mom and dad's responsibility to fix it all. You guys get to be a part of that. You're contributors to this. You live here. So it's our home. And as they got older...
I would tell my son and my daughter, you guys are basically adults. And now it takes the four of us to maintain this home. Let's figure out what strengths you've got to contribute to the health and the maintaining of this so that we can have fun times together and celebrate. And then I did ask my daughter and my son, what would make...
doing all these jobs and opportunities to serve here in our home fun. What would that be for you? And they both said music. If we could choose our playlist or our music, can we put that on and just put it loud while we're all doing our chores? I said, sure.
Let's make it something enjoyable because that's how we do work as adults. You find ways to enjoy the work God has given you to do. And it's not always going to be super fun, but you find creative ways to make it enjoyable. And sometimes my son and I, if we're washing dishes together, he'll go, Dad, can we put on a show? Just enjoy that together while we do dishes together? Sure. Sure.
Can we do, while they're vacuuming, can they put pods on and have music on? And so in the process of doing chores, we have learned about each other and learned about ourselves of what makes the work fun. Mm-hmm.
And one other one, I think that's a fantastic one for all families to consider if you have the yard to do it. Gardening is so rewarding. You put the work in and then you get the benefits of that through produce or through flowers that you can give away to people or flowers you can collect and give to mom in the house.
There's some gifts you get to that work, the fruit of the labor, something you can talk to your kids about from a young age. Well, that's a great perspective. And we've got a conversation with Christy Clover, not this one, but another one called Simple Ways to Organize Your Home and Family. And you'll hear from her in that discussion, all sorts of fun ways to involve the kids in organizing and beyond chores. And you'll find the link in the show notes to that other conversation with Christy. And
And if we've encouraged you along the way, if Focus on the Family has been a part of your family being supported and strong, let us ask you to support us financially. For a gift of any amount, either a monthly pledge or a one-time gift, we'll say thank you for being a part of the support team by offering the book from Christy called M.O.M., Master Organizer of Mayhem. Again, the author is Christy Clover, and the details to make a donation and get that book are in the show notes.
More from Christy next time. And for now, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the entire team, I'm John Fuller. And thanks for listening to the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast. Your marriage can be redeemed, even if the fights seem constant, even if there's been an affair, even if you haven't felt close in years. No matter how deep the wounds are, you can take a step toward healing them with a Hope Restored Marriage Intensive.
Our biblically-based counseling will help you find the root of your problems and face challenges together. We'll talk with you, pray with you, and help you find out which program will work best. Call us at 1-866-875-2915.