Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Consistency Consistency Consistency


Natasha
I think you (the parent) have heard about consistency before and said something like “I know, it's a matter of being consistent, but it is so hard”. I myself have said it. It can be really hard at first to get established in the area of consistency, but once it is set into place and the children know the routine, it is a big help. Not only is it important to plan out your days for yourself but also creates good habits in your children. One thing that is important for you, a homeschooling parent, is to have a good plan or schedule set in place. Inconsistency only leads to confusion, miss-communication, and most likely lots of disappointment and possibly tears from your children.


Lets Just Start With Sleep
Human beings should sleep in order to be healthy and productive. As you know, if you do not get enough sleep then you are cranky and tired all the next day. John Tesh gives examples on “Four Ways Sleep Can Dramatically Improve Your Life”. These four ways are 1.) “Your Brain will be Sharper” 2.) “You'll Have a Better Relationship” 3.) “A Good Nights Sleep Will Make You a Better Person” 4.) “Sleep Will Make You Thinner, and Better Looking”. To look more into these reasons, please clink on the link. So in a nut shell, we all need to put aside time for sleep.

We All Have To Eat
Ok so here is a fact that I have for you. Can you guess what it is, if not here goes. We all need to eat. Yup, fact of life. If you don’t eat, nothing good will come from it. Pediasure talks about (Child Growth and Development), giving a list of reasons why giving your children good nutrition is important. Some examples would be “the body uses protein to build healthy muscle and tissue”, “carbohydrates are the bodies primary source of energy”. So we all have to eat, it's important to set aside time for eating. Eating is also a time where you and your husband or wife can get together and enjoy one another's time.

Cleaning and Preparing Food
As a mom I know how much time it takes to clean the house and prepare food. It almost seems sometimes that “There isn't enough time in a day”. When it comes to preparing food, most typical meals take around fifteen to thirty to sixty minutes of prep time. This time frame does not include cooking time, just prep time. You can always be doing other things while food is cooking in the oven or in a crock-pot. If it's on the stove, I will just include that along with the prep time because stove-top meals don’t generally take as long to cook. Then I will add in one hour to eat a joyful and delightful dinner, and one hour and fifteen minutes to eat breakfast and lunch. Got to take time for coffee or tea you know. So with those time frames added together, at most you are looking at three hours and fifteen minutes around just eating and preparing food. I haven’t even mentioned the time it takes for clean-up. I could honestly sometimes go all day just in cleaning alone, but that just cannot be the case. In the area of cleaning I am not going to give a specific time frame because everyone is different and does things differently. So its up to you. However I think that it is important to plan out your days so that one is not overwhelmed by the cleaning, or the opposite, not productive with the cleaning. I think that it is very important to find out where you personally want to be as far as cleanliness and order, and how much time you are willing to put aside for cleaning.

Test It Out To Find Out
There is no harm done in just testing out how much time you spend accomplishing all of these things. Take a couple days to even a week if you want and see what you have for time. Make a list of all the things you typically spend doing in a day and write them down. Next, as you spend your day or week doing your tasks, log how much time you spend doing them. For example; “I sleep from eleven to seven- I would like to change that to eleven to six”. “ I spend three hours on average preparing and enjoying food with my family- I think that is good where it is”. “I spend four hours of cleaning my house on average- not happy with that need improvement”. These are a few examples, just to show that you might actually surprise yourself with what you are currently doing. After you have your list with your test log, you can sit down and go over with your family the things that you like and the things that need improvement.

Time For School
Again, this is an area that is up to personal preferences, the ages of the children, and things that need to get done. The typical school day last about six to six and a half hours. The great thing about homeschooling is that you don't have to follow that and just do what works best as far as time frame. It is a good idea though to make sure that your child's schooling is not put on the back burner time wise. The knowledge and understanding that our children get is very important and will help them in the long run of life. Us as parents need to find out how much time is going to be put aside for them to learn about life. If they have a test or book report or things have happened and they need to catch up, that is one thing, but I'm talking about time that they typically should spend on schooling in a day. If there is a time set up for this then you and your children will have time to enjoy other things as well.

So why should we have consistency in our days? Why should we put things in time frames? Why does life need to be set up in categories? Why can't I live life on a whim? Well, as I said previously. We all need to sleep. We all need to prepare our food. We all need to eat. We all need to clean-up the mess. We should all need to stay healthy, and clean. Also, we need to put aside time for educating our children. Consistency goes along with time, and time put aside for things brings consistency into our lives and into the lives of our children. If our children have consistency, then you will find that our children will feel loved, safe, taken care of and appreciated. If the test log is done right, then you as a family will know where you are and where you want to be. Then you will know how to achieve consistency in life.







No comments:

Post a Comment

If you have any helpful comments or suggestions they will be well received.