Stop playing the nice organizer and live as a family for real!

Even before we had children, my husband and I loved the simple life! We loved going about our business as the seasons changed . Both of us are quite resourceful, and we liked to do things ourselves. Philippe took care of the maintenance and repair of just about everything in the house or in the shed, and I cooked meals to freeze and gardened during the summer months. We took advantage of the weekends to take a little boat ride on the lake, go for a long bike ride, go for a run, go snowshoeing on the snowy trails behind the house, pay an impromptu visit to our parents and friends, start reading a novel or an essay, take care of our chickens, plant and maintain a garden, do small jobs or reorganize part of the house, and so on. All of these shared activities brought us together and made us happy.

After a few years of living together, Louis, our first child, came as a surprise. In a very intuitive way , we kept our rhythm of life and our activities, integrating Louis into this life as a couple that had become a family life . Louis integrated himself into our lives, sharing each of our activities. Louis who plays in the dirt with a shovel while we do the gardening, Louis who follows us with a bucket of water in his hand to go feed the chickens, Louis standing on a kitchen stool whisking eggs while Mom makes a cake, Louis who hands a wrench to Dad who fixes the lawnmower, Louis who accompanies us to the grocery store and pushes his own little basket, Louis who "sweeps" while Mom cleans the bathroom, Louis who leafs through a book while his parents read a novel themselves, and so on.

Not only did we not change our habits when the children arrived, but we made sure that our children integrated into them. It was never a question of registering them for any class under the pretext that we had to stimulate them. In fact, we registered them for baseball once and we gave up halfway through (shame on us!). Our children have never lacked stimulation, since they have always done EVERYTHING with us. Very rarely do we ask the other spouse to take care of the children so that we can do this or that. I would even say that we tend to ask them if they want to join us in doing our tasks. If I have to do some batch cooking, I always ask the kids if they want to help me. Often, the kids go down to the basement to accompany Philippe when he works in the workshop. Of course, we accept that things don't happen as quickly as we would like . But we are in no hurry, we have nothing else to do!

In my opinion, this way of life is the most stimulating for them . Learning about life through small daily tasks, and without worrying about performance, is extremely beneficial for children of this age . Children benefit from it, developing their resourcefulness and autonomy and we also benefit from it since we can continue to go about our business without finding that children are an obstacle.

Here are 5 tips to make it easier to complete tasks with children :

• Integrate children into your daily tasks by giving them small tasks that match their abilities.
• Accept that things won't go as fast as you want (take a breath, what are you in a hurry about anyway?)
• Remember to verbalize everything you do. Your children are little sponges absorbing everything you say and do!
• Take the opportunity to talk with your children. Ask them questions and create a moment of complicity (you will be surprised at the confidences they will tell you in this context!).
• When you complete the task, congratulate yourself on the result and acknowledge your child's contribution, no matter how small.

Playing the “nice organizer” every day of the week or even every weekend is often impossible, so you might as well adopt this attitude which will allow you to go about all your activities while allowing your children to develop valuable skills!

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