Positive Routines

Routines can be a good way to keep a large family running smoothly. Keys to getting them to work, maintaining them, and some ideas of routines that work for other families.

Routines for cleaning, pickup, cooking, teaching, and family time can help you to keep your home ordered. Once you stop thinking of them as drudgery or the mark of a control freak, they become a great tool that help you achieve your goals in your home, one bit at a time.

You already have some routines - your kids know what to expect at certain times of the day. When you want to make a change in your home, it becomes quite a bit easier if you piggyback it onto an existing routine.

If you want the kids to keep their rooms clean, then you set up times each day when you check the rooms. If you do that right after something else you do regularly, you'll remember better.

In fact, good routines in a home can help you AVOID many discipline problems, and many organizational problems. They provide structure and framework to guide your family through the day in a way that works.