Broken Broom, Contrite Spirit

The week after school got out, we began our summer chore program. During the school year, we are on a 4-day school week, so we usually do chores just on Fridays. But in the summer, we have a daily schedule and the boys get paid weekly for chores done. Every day, the focus of cleaning is on one particular room in the house, and the boys' names are on a rotating chart for what they have to clean in that room. This is what the weekly schedule looks like:

MONDAY: KITCHEN
Assignments: wash countertops & table, sweep floor, mop floor, shake rug/sweep laundry room floor

TUESDAY: LIVING ROOM
Assignments: shake rug/sweep entry, vacuum, dust, wash windows

WEDNESDAY: FAMILY ROOM
Assignments: shake rug/sweep entry, vacuum, dust, wash windows

THURSDAY: BATHROOM & GARBAGE
Assignments: clean toilet, shake rugs/sweep floor, wash mirror, wash sink/countertop
Assignments: take bags to garbage can,  refill containers with new bags, take garbage can down to road, bring garbage can back from road

FRIDAY: clean own BEDROOM and WEED the pumpkin patch

In addition to these chores, they also have regularly assigned days to wash their laundry, help make dinner, set/clean up table, and wash dishes. Jonah and Micah are also responsible for mowing the lawn (they each do half) and Kanyon is responsible for watering all the outside flowers 3 times a week. Most of the chores are ones they earn money to do (not to clean their own room or to help make dinner, though).

There are also two rules that they have to obey in order to earn money for doing the chores, too:
1. Chores must be done before noon.
2. No complaining about having to do the chore.

Now that we've been doing this system for several years, the boys have gotten pretty good at fulfilling their responsibilities. They usually wake up in the morning, play for a little bit, eat breakfast, then get to work without me even having to tell them to do so. The chore chart is posted on the fridge, so they go there to see what their specific chores are for the day. Usually, the chores are done in about a half hour, and it makes me happy to hear them every morning being productive and helping maintain order and cleanliness in the house without reminding them or nagging them.

I've trained Kanyon how to do all the chores the last two summers, so he's able to do them all by himself now as a 7-year-old, which is wonderful! Yesterday there was an incident that happened during chores that made me laugh, so I'm documenting it so that I will be able to remember it.

It was a Monday morning, so the boys were working on the kitchen chores. Kanyon's chore was to sweep the laundry room floor. He had taken a broom inside the laundry room, but he kept yelling at Jonah and Micah in the kitchen to be quiet because he couldn't focus on sweeping. (Kanyon usually turns very angry/ornery about an hour after waking up because he needs to eat and I am constantly reminding him to eat because he gets playing and forgets to eat and we all pay the price!)  So I kept yelling at him to stop yelling at his brothers, to finish sweeping, and then eat breakfast. This went on a for a couple minutes, and finally he stopped yelling. Jonah and Micah finished their kitchen chores and went outside to play. Kanyon, however, was still in the laundry room. After a while, I watched him quietly walk through the kitchen, then he walked back to the laundry room and shut the door. For over a half hour, the laundry room door stay closed with him inside. I just figured he'd gotten distracted (that happens frequently when he's doing chores), and was doing something else, but since he was being quiet (and not screaming), I just let him be and didn't disturb him. At 12:15 (an hour and 15 minutes after starting the chore), he opened the door and walked into my room. He had tears in his eyes, and spoke very softly. His voice was shaking and he said "I broke the broom because I was angry. I don't know how to fix it."

Apparently when he was yelling at Jonah and Micah to be quiet, he banged the broom on the ground in haste and the sweeping part broke off the handle. When I had seen him walk through the kitchen a half hour earlier, he had gone to the cupboard to get some tape, and had tried to tape it back together. He had spent a half hour closed inside the room trying to quietly fix what he had broken.

It was just a cheap broom to begin with, so I told him that the broom couldn't be fixed and he just needed to throw it away. So he did. He thought he would lose his allowance money for the day because it was after noon, so he said "it's already past the time", but I told him it was okay and not to worry about it because he would still earn his money for the job if he finished it. So he got the other broom out and went back to the laundry room to finish his chore.

I'm really proud of him--it's hard for him to vocalize how he's feeling, and he completely owned up to breaking the broom AND telling me his feelings on why he did it. Just seeing him confess to me while holding up the broken pieces made me so happy because I feel like he's making progress and that made me smile (but I didn't laugh at him right then in his sad, penitent moment)! I just smiled & laughed the rest of the day every time I thought about his sweet little face sadly telling me about a cheap, broken broom.