Do you ever have days where your children are bored and quarrelsome?  I know I have had my times of letting the little ones just free range doing whatever it is they want to do and it results in arguments, too much tv, and boredom.  So what should we do?

I think back to when I had my first few children, I never had them do many chores at a young age.  Actually, I think they MAYBE had to pick up their rooms with the help of me of course when they were school aged.  Not a whole lot of expectations coming from my side.

Well, I got smarter over the years….I realized that children NEED work for a sense of accomplishment especially at a young age.  That is why, I have even the youngest of our children, help with tasks around the house.

Do I require them? No, not with the littlest ones, but my school aged children know what is expected of them and if they don’t they look at their charts.  They are pretty good to follow what it is they need to do and then they know that once they complete their tasks they are free to do as they please.   This has helped with attitudes and whines.  They know that they have a set thing to do before it is free time.  This allows them to set the bar for happiness for themselves.  “If you want to have free time, then you had better get working, otherwise you will still be doing this all day.”

Sometimes, I have days where there is A LOT Of things to get done. I will then write them on our marker board, under the appropriate child names and  they know what else needs to be done.  I usually save these miscellaneous tasks for after school.  That way we can get our school done without having to wait for the other children to complete extra work.

Having a list let’s them see what it is they need to do and they know what they have to do to get it done.  The other approach is basically giving them jobs to do when they come to my mind. That never goes over well.   Can you imagine having to wait for your boss to decide what else he would want you to do each day?  It might be fine for a day or so, but for regular work, wouldn’t you be better off if he gave you a list and you knew what you had to complete.  It takes off the stress and the strain of wondering when they will be done.

If I notice that my children are squabbling, I take note and see what they are up to.  Does someone need a break, maybe some food, or maybe they just need something to do.  I take care of important needs like food and comfort and then if they are still squabbling, I give them a time away.

Sometimes that might mean that they are overwhelmed with life, as I get too and just need a hug and a short talk.  Sometimes it is just complete rebellion and then they  need a discipline.  Currently in our home, copying works well for that.  We are doing a book called Wisdom and the Millers and it has a short chapter read that we do each day with a lesson connected with the book of Proverbs. 

We relate it, as the book does, to our life and how we can do better.  We make a simple drawing and put it on the wall with the corresponding bible verse.  If anyone needs “correction” it has been helpful to direct them to the lesson we talked about and then have them copy the verse  one piece of paper full.

I used to have a discipline chart on the wall, when I had the older children.  It had the offense on one side and the bible verse as to why they should not do it and then the punishment on the right.  That was good as a “quick reference” but for now, it helps to use the lessons we are currently learning for school.

For the toddler, he has been ‘testing” his boundaries and learning to cope with life without a pacifier.  When he begins to scream in defiance , we tell him “no” and then if he continues we take him to his room and let him sit on his bed.  He doesn’t come out until he is ready to calm down.  This works much better than letting him lay on the floor in a fit.  Which I have done in the past by the way.  There have been MANY times, I have been lapsed in my disciplining, just didn’t put it as a priority, but you do what you can do.

I don’t have a cookie cutter approach to disciplining my children.  My children are not of the cookie cutter kind. Each one has been different and we have dealt with them differently.  There have been times, when I had many little ones that I let them do whatever, then as it wore on me and got me frazzled, I knew I needed to change.  I started training them and correcting them as best as I could.  Now I don’t have as many little ones that take up all of my time and I can focus more on training and correcting them.

Did my older children grow up all bad?  No, not horrible, but I can see where I never “nipped in the bud” some of the attitudes that they have carried into their older years.  Not impossible to fix, just more of a heart issue and growing up issue to correct.  So what does that motivate me to do?  To help correct and train heart issues at a young age with the other children.  When I see them get angry with each other or snippy, I realize most of the time they just need something to do.  As a Mom, I like to do most things myself, but I realize that they need something to do as well.  Start rationing out the work, let them feel a sense of worth as they go about their day.  You will benefit from their help, their hearts will be molded, and you have just helped them deal with and correct an issue in their life.  You did kingdom work—and that is the best out there.

Along with our healthy eating challenge this year to switch over to a more whole foods approach to our diet, we have discovered the benefits of making our own yogurt, drinking and making kombucha, recently started making kefir, and have been making our own bone broth.

I have always used chicken bouillon base to make our soups and to flavor our dishes.  I never really thought that I was feeding my children a chemical, sodium filled ingredient until I stopped.  I found an alternative to make my own chicken bouillon with nutritional yeast.  That was our first step to flavoring our soups.  We stopped buying  store chicken bouillon and then added this homemade version to flavor our soups.  It definitely had less of a salty flavor but we were “training” our tastebuds to a different way of eating.  I added more spices and we learned to enjoy this method.

My next step was to make my own broth.  People all over the world make this mineral rich nourishing broth, why would I not have done this in the first place??    I started looking at the benefits from it:

• Helps aid in digestion.  The gelatin extracted from the bones can help heal and protect the lining of the digestive tract, which means you absorb more nutrients from foods.
• Good for your bones. Calcium and other minerals in bone broth help repair bones.
• Can help joint pain.  Glucosamine, found in the fluid that lubricates our joints, is also in bone broth.
• Helps boost growth in nails and hair as it contains collagen and gelatin.

Then to look up the benefits of chicken flavored bouillon, I found one:

• convenient to use

That wasn’t enough for me to continue using it.  Convenience over health has taken a back seat for me.

I took whole chickens that I had bought from Aldis and put them in my roaster with water to fill it to the top.

I added some carrots, onions, celery, and garlic to help infuse the flavors.  I then set it on low and let it cook for hours, overnight was best.  The longer you let the  meat cook, the more tender your meat will be.

It just fell off the bones and then I separated the meat from the carcass and gave that part to the animals.  I then strained off the liquid from the vegetables and put it into containers for the freezer for a later time.

I use this to make as a base for any soup for our family.

At Thanksgiving time, after removing all the meat from our turkey, I put the carcass into the crockpot with water, onion, garlic, carrot, and celery and let it simmer on low for 8 hours.  I strained off the carcass and vegetables and used the broth for turkey stew later that week.

I don’t have to use any more spices to our soups.  Just some pepper for spiciness and we are good.  It takes getting used to because we are used to a salt laden broth, but as we continued to make it, we were able to use less and less salt in our soups.

Try it, it is inexpensive and good for you.  Why waste things that are free.  You can buy a whole chicken and use it for a few meals and then make some soup with the carcass.  Use up your resources.