Growing up, I remember my mom and dad arguing over bills a lot. This was back when there were no online payments. The bills got put in a bill box, and once a month, they would pull out the stack and some stamps, sit at the dining room table together, and write checks. The occasional misplaced bill combined with a tight budget and two different styles of financial management led to a lot of tension and fighting. But they made a change and the fighting stopped almost instantaneously.
I remember feeling so relieved not to have to hear them fight, and I wondered why they hadn’t been doing it this new way all along. Fast forward 30 years, I inadvertently used the same solution with my family over a completely different issue. Instead of bills, we were dealing with dinnertime chaos. These were two very different conflicts, resolved by making the same change. I’m confident that if you’re struggling with sharing household responsibilities, you can do this, too, and make life better for everyone in your home.
Stop delegating and start specializing.
All good managers know that delegating is crucial. Journalist Deborah Roberts (Al Roker’s wife) said, “There’s no sin in delegating. The sin is in trying to do it all.” That’s especially true for parenting. Not only will trying to do it all exhaust you, but it also deprives your child of preparing for life by sharing household responsibilities. But when you make someone a specialist, you give him or her ownership over a task, so he or she becomes an expert in it.
If you delegate taking out the trash to your 12-year-old son, you’ll probably only get the help with manual labor. That’s great, but not when you compare it to specializing. A Waste Management Specialist knows the trash is his to do in its entirety. He notices it’s ready to go out, replaces the bag, takes the can to the curb on trash day, and hollers when there are two bags left and you need to pick some up on the next grocery trip. Delegating is managing while specializing is empowering.
Delegating is managing while specializing is empowering. Click To TweetHere’s how my parents and I created specialists.
The day my parents decided my dad would be the Billing Specialist is the day things changed for them. My mom didn’t breathe down his neck, and he paid the bills in the way and time that worked for him.
In my home, my kids became Dishwasher Specialists and are in charge of emptying it before dinner so we have room for dirty dishes afterward. If we’re low on detergent, they tell Alexa to add it to the grocery list.
Take these 5 steps to create specialists in your home.
1. Write down the tasks that need to be done.
Toilets, oil changes, laundry, lawn care, dusting, meal planning… If you’re going to master sharing household responsibilities, you need to know what needs to be done.
2. Lean into everyone’s strengths.
This is where you would consider what’s age-appropriate. You wouldn’t give the kids the bills unless you had an Alex P. Keaton on your hands (It’s an 80s reference. Family Ties. Anyone?). One of my sons is more coordinated, so sweeping comes easily to him. The other likes being given responsibility, so he would be capable of specializing in something that involves more details.
3. Write down what it takes to specialize in that task.
Have the details of the specialization written down so there’s no misunderstanding. When I train my kids to be Lunch Specialists, I’ll make sure they know they need to empty their lunchboxes of any leftovers, make sure the lunchboxes get wiped out, and tell me when we’re out of an item. I’ll also have them use something like iMOM’s Healthy Meal Planning printable to make sure they’re not packing three bags of Doritos.
4. Let go.
Specializing is a great way to build trust between family members, but you have to let go and allow the specialist to own the task. Accept that the specialist might mess up a few times. That will be part of the learning process.
5. Have a family meeting and re-evaluate.
If someone drops the ball, it’s a lot better to talk about it at a family meeting than in the heat of the moment. You can also use the meeting to switch up specialists and let someone else become a master of a chore.
What do you say? Ready to start specializing? What task do you think you could assign to your kids?
