Being Helpful

<p>Good morning, Five Minute Families. Thank you for joining us this morning. For the past three weeks we have discussed roles in the family - leadership, management, and child roles. Leadership is often discussed in terms of servant leadership. Managers that pitch-in and help out are often praised, considered more likeable and approachable. Kids of certain ages often ask to help with any new task, and some parents are great to encourage their kids to help them. But, in all this helpfulness, are you REALLY helping? Or, are simply feeling better about yourself because you participated in some part of another person’s task? Let us explain with an example.</p><p>I despise cooking. I truly do not find any joy in it whatsoever, but my husband does not even view it as a chore. He listens to our likes and dislikes and caters to our desires while giving us nutritious, delicious food. Early in our marriage, Jim and I divided kitchen duties on his days off with his doing the planning, prepping, and cooking, and my doing all the cleaning. For twenty-five and a half years, with some flexible variations, that has worked. Until recently. One of our children has to have some major dietary changes that require me to plan, prep, cook, and clean at least three meals a day from scratch just for him. Some parts of each meal can cross over to the rest of us, but for many meals over the last five weeks, I have been making up to four different mains or side dishes to meet the needs of the different family members. I kept getting more and more frustrated on the days Jim would cook. He did not clean up. One Sunday morning I had to take 20 minutes cleaning before I could prepare the food safely for our kiddo. </p><p>I never needed to worry about ending the task of cooking because Kim enjoyed cleaning, and we both willingly divided that task into its parts instead. Every task has something that ends it, that closes it out … and that is usually cleaning up. Doing homework on the dining table? Clean up the pencils, papers, and books. Mowing