Family Focus: Three Simple Ways to Bring a Little Order to the Chaos

Do you ever find yourself following your kids around the house, picking up one mess after another, wondering if you've somehow raised Tasmanian devils with opposable thumbs? You clean one room, turn around, and somehow the room you just cleaned looks like it was burglarized by people who weren't actually looking for anything.

Or maybe you're in a constant battle with electronics for your child's attention. You can call their name six times from three feet away and get absolutely nothing, but whisper “Wi-Fi is down” from the other side of the house and suddenly everyone can hear perfectly.

In our home, all of these things have been true at one time or another—sometimes all at the same time.

My wife and I married young and started our family right away. Much of our early parenting was spent in emergency mode because our oldest daughter was born with serious heart conditions and underwent multiple open-heart surgeries. Establishing anything resembling a consistent routine wasn't easy. At the same time, necessity forced us to figure some things out pretty quickly.

I still remember working late one night as a restaurant manager when my wife called me and said two things: “I'm done,” followed by, “I'm going to bed.”

For those of you who have been married awhile, you know those aren't sentences. They're a weather warning.

I came home and opened the door to what appeared to be the aftermath of a small tornado that had somehow learned to bake. Chairs were upside down. Flour and eggs covered the kitchen floor. There were children involved, although I'm still not entirely sure what they had been attempting to accomplish.

And that was just the first room.

So believe me, I am not writing this as someone who has mastered parenting. We are no strangers to failure. If you have children, teach children, or work with them in any capacity, chances are you aren't either.

Over the years, both as a parent and an educator, I've learned a few simple strategies that can help bring some order to the chaos. They aren't revolutionary, and they won't produce perfectly behaved children. If anyone promises you perfectly behaved children, check whether they actually have children.

But these strategies are practical, and you can start using them today.

1. Limit Screen Time

Let's be honest: televisions, tablets, computers, phones, and video games make entertaining children incredibly easy. When you're working, cooking dinner, exhausted, or simply trying to use the bathroom without someone holding a meeting outside the door, the virtual babysitter can be pretty appealing.

I've been there.

The problem comes when screens begin replacing the things children need to learn to do for themselves—wait, cope with boredom, create, play, interact with other people, and figure out what to do when entertainment isn't immediately available.

We live in an on-demand world. Almost everything we want can appear with a click, swipe, or tap. Children need opportunities to learn that life doesn't always work that way.

So set reasonable limits on recreational screen time and prepare yourself for one of the most terrifying sentences a modern child can utter:

“I'm bored.”

Remain calm. This is not a medical emergency.

Boredom isn't always a problem we need to solve for our children. Sometimes it's the beginning of creativity.

Give them time to figure it out. They may complain. They may wander around the house looking tragically abandoned. Eventually, though, a cardboard box becomes a fort, the backyard becomes an adventure, toys that haven't been touched since the last presidential administration suddenly become interesting again, or they simply learn that human beings can survive several consecutive minutes without being entertained.

That's a skill they'll need for the rest of their lives.

2. Catch Them Doing Something Right

There is something in all of us that responds to being recognized.

Think about how it feels when someone tells you, “You did a great job,” or “I'm proud of you.” Those words matter when we're adults, and they matter even more when we're children.

Unfortunately, it's incredibly easy as parents to become professional mistake detectors.

Put that down.

Stop doing that.

Clean this up.

Leave your brother alone.

Why is that wet?

Sometimes you don't even want to know the answer to the last one.

Correction is absolutely necessary, but if most of the attention a child receives comes when something goes wrong, we shouldn't be surprised when negative behavior becomes an effective way to get our attention.

Try catching your child doing something right.

Notice the small victories. Thank them when they help without being asked. Tell them you noticed when they showed kindness to a sibling. Praise the effort they put into something even when the result wasn't perfect.

And give them room to fail.

Mistakes are part of learning. When mistakes are met with teaching, appropriate consequences, and grace, children learn that failure doesn't have to determine what happens next.

Tell your kids you're proud of them. Celebrate their progress. Correct them when necessary, but make sure yesterday's poor choice doesn't become today's identity.

3. Use Incentives

This is usually where someone says, “So you're telling me to bribe my children?”

Yes.

Well...not exactly.

Let's call it motivational economics so we all feel better about ourselves.

Adults respond to incentives all the time. Most of us don't get up every morning, fight traffic, answer emails, attend meetings, and pay taxes because adulthood is such an exhilarating hobby. We work because there is something valuable on the other side of that work.

Children aren't that different.

If something matters to your child, you have an opportunity to connect that privilege or reward to responsibility.

I once worked with a parent who gave her son about $20 in Roblox credit every weekend simply because he wanted it. I understood why. He had significant behavioral challenges, she was exhausted, and sometimes parents aren't developing a behavioral intervention plan—they're just trying to make it to bedtime with everyone still accounted for.

But that Roblox credit could have become a powerful teaching tool.

Instead of automatically receiving it, he could work toward it through one clearly defined behavior or responsibility.

The key is to start small.

If your child has several challenging behaviors, don't pull out a legal pad and create a 37-point improvement plan. Pick one. Define exactly what success looks like and attach an achievable reward to it.

For younger children, a sticker chart and inexpensive prize box can work wonderfully. Small children will perform astonishing amounts of labor for a sticker and a plastic dinosaur worth approximately nine cents. Use this window of opportunity while it lasts.

As children get older, allowance can be useful because it begins teaching the natural relationship between responsibility, work, money, and choices. Over time, you can increase both the expectations and the length of time required to earn the reward.

The goal isn't to make children dependent on prizes forever. The goal is to use something they already value to help teach habits, responsibility, and self-control.

Keep It Simple

There are thousands of parenting books, classes, podcasts, videos, experts, and philosophies available today. Spend enough time looking through them and you can become convinced you're damaging your children because you bought the wrong brand of breakfast cereal.

Sometimes simple is better.

We know spending every waking hour staring at a screen isn't healthy for us, so it probably isn't healthy for our children either.

We appreciate having our effort noticed, and so do they.

We understand that responsibility often comes before reward, and our children need opportunities to learn that too.

None of this will make your home perfect. Ours certainly isn't. You will have good days, terrible days, and probably a few days when you walk into a room, stare silently at what has happened, and decide you aren't emotionally prepared to ask questions yet.

That's family life.

Be consistent. Give yourself and your children some grace. Don't become discouraged when change takes longer than you hoped.

Have faith in the process.

You don't have to fix everything today. Figure out one thing you can do differently, start there, and take one step forward.