Intentional Parents

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book as Biblical, helpful, and encouraging as Laura Hendrickson’s Finding Your Child’s Way on the Autism Spectrum. Laura speaks out of an experience with her autistic son from preschool diagnosis through high school valedictorian.

Laura does an excellent job of weaving her personal experiences, Biblical principles, and practical suggestions together into short, readable chapters. She does not back away from the tougher subjects, such as “How do I discipline my autistic child?” and “What about stims?” or “How should I handle a meltdown?” In fact, the Biblical principles she presents for those subjects–always seasoned with grace–have helped to clarify my thoughts and encourage me to persevere with our autistic daughter.

I am especially thankful for her examples of discipling our special needs children, nudging them closer to Christ even when we don’t know whether they are comprehending spiritual truths.

I was convicted by chapter 8, in which Laura graciously shared what the Lord taught her through watching her son be rejected and ridiculed by others.

Recent statistics cite that 1 out of every 100 children are on the autism spectrum. To those of you who are seeking to be an intentional parent for your autistic child, or for those of you who know a parent of an autistic child, I highly recommend Finding Your Child’s Way on the Autism Spectrum by Dr. Laura Hendrickson, published by Moody Publishers.

When my children were young, I noticed that we would mention an extended family member in a conversation but the children wouldn’t know who we were talking about. Since they saw those family members only occasionally, they didn’t remember them.

A Prayer Photo Album really helped in that situation. I collected a photo of each member of our extended family and compiled those photos in a photo album, one family or individual per page. We also included some friends who lived near or far away, as well as missionaries that our family or church supported.

Each day we would pray for one or two of those friends and family. We would open the album, look at the next photo in the book, and tell that person’s name. If it was a family’s group photo, we reminded the children of everybody’s names. Then we prayed for that person or family.

This practice was a great reminder of absentee relatives or friends. The next time we mentioned one of those people, the children had a face to go with the name. But it also helped to establish the habit of praying for others.

We soon discovered that the Prayer Photo Album could get a bit monotonous if we didn’t know what was happening in those people’s lives. We would have to pray a “generic” prayer for each one, and that got old after several days in a row. So the album was also a great motivation to keep in touch with family members and friends.

These days, with all the social networking Internet sites or even just e-mail, staying in touch can be pretty easy—if you make it a priority. You could make it a point to contact, say, the next five people in the book to find out what is going on in their lives. You wouldn’t necessarily have to ask, “How can we pray for you?” Once you know what is happening in their world, you will have a pretty good idea of how to pray. But feel free to let them know that you are praying for them regularly, if you think it would encourage them.

A Prayer Photo Album—a simple and effective way to value friends and family, plus instill the habit of praying for others.

On Mother’s Day, 2002, we began an unknown journey with our youngest daughter, Hannah. She was four years old and we had finally determined that she has autism. Not the grandest way to spend Mother’s Day, believe me.

I wrestled with many things over the next few years. And if you were to ask me, What are the top three words of advice you would share out of those struggles?”, here is what I would tell you: Be intentional; Do your research; Rest in God’s plan.

In the paragraphs below, I talk about living with a special needs child. You may be dealing with a parent or a spouse with special needs during this season in your life. No matter what special needs you may face, these principles would be my counsel to you.

Be Intentional

When your child is diagnosed with a special need, it’s easy to adopt a victim mentality. You feel like something that isn’t supposed to happen has happened to you, and you can’t do anything about it.

But a victim mentality is not what is best for your family or your children. So in this, as well as in other circumstances, think things through and do what will be best. Just as in other areas of parenting, we must make sure we are not operating out of a default mentality (following the crowd and mindlessly doing what everyone else is doing) or a survival mentality (recklessly doing whatever it takes to survive until the hard times suddenly go away).

You can still be an intentional parent to a special needs child. In fact, our special children need intentional parents all the more.

Do Your Research

The second piece of advice I would share is to do your research. If you don’t know about something, go read, think, and learn. Educate yourself. Dedicate yourself to learning about all the facets of your child’s situation and exploring the pros and cons to all the options you discover.

Listen to others, yes, but don’t assume they know best. Think about what they say, learn all you can, seek God’s guidance, and then do what will be most beneficial for your child.

Not everyone will understand. Not everyone will agree. But if you have done your research and prayed for wisdom, you can move forward with confidence.

Rest in God’s Plan

The third piece of advice I would share is to encourage you to rest in God’s plan for your family. During that first year after Hannah’s diagnosis, we had to severely limit our activities. We couldn’t go on field trips anymore, because Hannah couldn’t handle it. We couldn’t have company over anymore, because we were focused on Hannah’s daily therapy. There are still limits that we deal with today because of those special needs.

As moms tend to do, I began to be concerned about my other children. I began to view the special needs as a problem that was hindering them and could possibly ruin their lives. But God graciously showed me that our situation was not a mistake for any person in our family. He was still very much in control, and He had plans for the other children just as much as He had plans for me on this journey.

Over the years I’ve seen the other children grow in many beautiful ways and develop specific character traits that are a direct result of living with a special-needs sister.

So don’t fret about what the special needs or limitations are doing to the other children. God is big enough to include them in His plan. He has it all worked out. Trust Him and watch what He will do.

Encouragement for Parents

One of the hardest parts about that first year after Hannah’s diagnosis was dealing with the spiritual struggles. I could find books that recommended different therapies, and I saw several books that told other families’ stories, but I couldn’t find the encouragement that I needed to address the spiritual abyss I felt like I was in.

During that year God had orchestrated circumstances so that I was already reading through the Bible. And as I continued that schedule, He was faithful to speak to my various needs and questions through His Word. I recorded that spiritual encouragement in a journal and have made it available for other parents who may be on a similar journey: This Anguishing Blessed Journey.

Also, I’ve pulled several key points from that book and combined them into an article called “Lessons from the Valley.” You can read it free on our Web site.

Dealing with special needs is never an easy path. Yet we can rest on God’s promise that this, too, is for our good. As we walk down that path, holding tightly to His hand, we will also begin to see how it is for His glory.

Recently a friend told me that she was noticing a trend in the church nursery. On her weeks to work in the nursery, she saw older children come to help but without any idea of how to play with the toddlers or take care of the babies. She had to direct each older child and explain how to play or how to hold the little ones.

Among the home skills that our children need to prepare them for adulthood, caring for children should have a prominent place. So many tough decisions come with being a parent, our children would benefit from a good foundation in the basics of caring for their future children. If they already have experience with the fundamentals of caring for a child’s physical needs, they will have a great headstart as new parents.

Attitude to Foster

First and foremost, the right attitude is paramount. A caregiver might fulfill her obligations, but if she carries out her duties with a begrudging, condescending attitude, the children under her care will not thrive.

In child-care, as in so many other aspects of life, our oft-repeated motto applies yet again: “Respect the elder; protect the younger.” As a caregiver, an attitude of respect for the parent’s desires and protection for the child will carry you through many potentially puzzling situations.

This attitude will make all the difference in whether the caregiver spends the majority of his time texting his friends on his phone or interacting thoughtfully with the child in his charge. It will help solve the question of whether to allow the child to try to walk along the top of the picket fence. The motto of “Respect the elder; protect the younger” is a faithful guideline.

Skills to Develop

The best of intentions, however, can’t take the place of practical training in basic child-care skills. Here is a short list of basic skills that will help prepare your children to care for those younger than they are.

1. Meeting needs — The physical needs of babies and young children basically boil down to “food in and food out” needs. Our children need to know that you don’t give a four-month-old a piece of steak and that babies seem to spit out as much as they take in. Also, as is prudent and possible, they need to learn the basics of changing a diaper and helping a toddler use the bathroom. (Please use discretion in mixing genders for the “food out” needs.)
2. Reading books aloud — Work with your children to practice reading simple books aloud with a pleasant, interesting voice. Help them gain experience in using a picture book to teach names of objects patiently and clearly.
3. Playing — This skill will vary depending on the age of the child being cared for. Playing with a three-month-old is vastly different from playing with a three-year-old. Try to make sure your children have experience playing with a variety of ages.
4. Keeping safe — If they are following the “Protect the younger” motto, the children will most likely keep safety as a high priority. It might also be wise to make sure they have a grasp on some basic first-aid “just in case.” (The American Red Cross has a First Aid and Safety handbook that might be helpful.)

Opportunities to Learn

“That’s all well and good,” you might say. “But how can my children gain all this first-hand experience with younger children?” Glad you asked. Here are a few ideas to get things started. You’ll probably find many more opportunities around you.

1. Younger siblings — Babies and young children in the house are prime opportunities for the older children to learn child-care skills firsthand. We just need to make sure older siblings are not so busy that they never spend time caring for the younger or playing with the younger.
2. Adopt a younger family — Part of God’s plan for discipleship is that the older mothers mentor the younger mothers. So look around your church for a younger mom who has younger children and invite her to meet you at a park or to come spend some time at your house. Discipling is best done in everyday situations. Your time together doesn’t have to be spent studying a book or following a program. Form a friendship; encourage the younger mother; give counsel when requested. And coach your older children in caring for that mom’s younger children while you are together. Help them see it as part of your family’s ministry to brothers and sisters in the church.
3. Baby-sit — It works well to transition into a solo baby-sitting job by starting first in your home. Have your older child offer to care for a younger child or baby at your house, rather than at the child’s house. Your older child will be responsible and do the care-giving, but you will be on hand to watch and coach as needed. Once your older child is comfortable and competent baby-sitting at your house, he or she can more confidently transition to giving care alone at the younger child’s house.
4. Nanny position — We were blessed this past year with the opportunity for our oldest daughter, who has graduated from our home school, to nanny during the week. Under the supervision of two godly women, she gained valuable experience with child-caregiving and tutoring, while at the same time ministering to the moms and their families.

Children are a blessing. Let’s do all we can to prepare our children to be parents who welcome and know how to care for their little ones.

I remember a conversation I had with several other moms who were from different regions of the country. We were discussing “common courtesy,” and many of us had different ideas of what constituted courteous actions.

Some insisted on their children’s using “ma’am” and “sir”; others didn’t care about that wording. Some felt insulted when a child left the table before all the other family members were done eating; others had never thought about that practice.

In many ways we were diverse in our definitions of courtesy, but on one thing we all agreed: we could tell very easily when someone was being discourteous or disrespectful. Specific actions might vary, but the underlying attitude could be clearly seen.

Courtesy

Over the years I have seen some parents work hard at teaching their children etiquette, but those same children do not exhibit courtesy. What’s the difference? Etiquette is a way of acting; true courtesy is a heart attitude.

Courtesy is being concerned with the other person’s comfort. It may take different forms in different situations, but the underlying attitude remains.

I’m a firm believer in the principle that common courtesy begins at home. There is no better place to help your children develop the habit of being courteous. Make up your mind now to be consistent: if you wouldn’t allow your child to treat a guest that way, don’t allow him to treat a sibling that way. Concern for the other person’s comfort is the key.

Here, again, the motto of “Respect the older; protect the younger” applies.

Some Personal Specifics

Do you want some specific suggestions? Okay. Here are some of the practices that I have tried to instill in my children as habits of courtesy. Please don’t limit yourself to these, but this list might at least give you a starting place.

• Please and thank you

  From the time they were babies, I have required that my children say “please” and “thank you.” When they were too young to say the words, I taught them the two sign-language signs to communicate those courteous thoughts. And I reinforced the habit by natural consequences. If they didn’t say “please,” I looked at them expectantly and waited until they remembered. When I handed them what they had asked for, I didn’t let go until they said “thank you.” And, of course, I tried to model courtesy by using “please” when I told them to do something: “Please go tell Daddy that it’s time for supper.”

• Returning a greeting

  Even shy children can be encouraged to smile and say “hello” in response to a greeting (before darting behind Mom’s leg). Especially when an older person greets a child, common courtesy dictates that the child respond in kind. We’ve worked hard on this skill with my youngest daughter who has autism. It takes some reminding and some practicing, but it can be done.

• Looking in the eyes

  Try to encourage your children to look the other person in the eye when engaged in a conversation. Looking down or letting your eyes wander around the room can be perceived as rude. One thing that can help with this practice is to make sure you look your child in the eyes when you are communicating with him. And please try to remember to make him look you in the eye when you are praising him, just as much as making him look you in the eye when you are correcting him. It’s easy to do the “Look at me when I’m talking to you” reminder for criticism but not for praise. But eye contact during praise can pave the way for confident eye contact in other conversations too.

• Thank You notes

  We all know how nice it is to receive a thank you note from someone. So let’s teach our children the fine art of encouraging one another by writing thank you notes. Start when they are young and provide personally-preferred notecards as they grow older to help make this practice a habit.

• Telephone manners

  Take some time to help your children practice good telephone courtesy. Role play how you want them to answer the phone, how to lay it down carefully and come get you (rather than drop the receiver and yell across the house), and how to deliver a message accurately. When they get older, work with them to practice writing down a message, getting all the necessary information, and placing the note somewhere prominent to make sure you see it.

Your Specifics

I’m sure you can think of other good manners that you want to instill in your children. Maybe your list would include such courtesies as

• Boys holding the door open for ladies
• Giving up your seat for an older person
• Dinner table etiquette
• Saying “yes, ma’am” and “no, sir”

Specific manners may vary from home to home, but the guiding principles of kindness and respect remain constant. Teach your children those character traits—starting with family members—and common (or perhaps, rare) courtesy will follow more easily.

I remember when I first faced this intimidating assignment with my oldest child: teach my child to read. All of the usual “what if” questions, with their corresponding imaginative answers, assailed my mind. “What if I tell her the wrong sound combination for a certain blend? She won’t know how to read those words for the rest of her life! What if I can’t explain it well enough? She’ll be illiterate when she’s 40!”

You may well chuckle now, but those were very real thoughts and fears back then. These days I don’t have those fears. My first three children are all reading well. My fourth has just achieved the triumphant milestone of moving from three-letter short-A words to three-letter short-I words. She is moving at a much slower pace than my first three did, but we are using the same methods and they are working.

For those of you who are in the season of life that offers you the privilege of teaching a child to read, I’m happy to share how we have approached the task. Here is the short version:
Step One: Learn the alphabet.
Step Two: Connect beginning sounds to alphabet letters.
Step Three: Connect ending sounds to alphabet letters.
Step Four: Put letter sounds together to make words.

I prefer to introduce just a few phonics rules to get the children started reading: mainly short vowel sounds, long vowel situations, and how “r” affects a vowel. Those are usually enough rules to get them started reading aloud. Then as we read aloud a little each day, we simply introduce other rules as they are needed.

If you would like details to go with the steps listed above, you can read a letter I wrote to a young mom many years ago.

Most of all, be encouraged! In most cases, if a child grows up in an environment where books and reading are loved, it will be very hard to stop him from learning to read.

Those of you who have met me might be surprised when I tell you that I played basketball in high school. I’m 5’4″ in thick-soled sneakers. I also played volleyball in college. (Can you tell I went to small schools?)

There’s a lot to be said for team sports, and I learned a lot playing those sports. But the one lesson that stands out to me today, thirty years later, is that most team sports don’t carry over into adult life. It becomes very difficult to balance the time commitment and connection with other players while maintaining the responsibilities of a job and home life.

That’s one reason I like to emphasize recreational activities that will carry over into adulthood. The activities listed below are great ways to get exercise regardless of your age, size, or ability. And you can participate in these activities alone or with the whole family.

Family-Friendly Activities

1. Bicycling — Bicycling is a wonderful exercise for the entire family, but it can present challenges when the children are just learning how to ride. When my husband worked at a bicycle shop, we discovered the joy of riding tandem bicycles (bicycles built for two). We could get so much more exercise, and not have to worry about little ones falling behind, if we put a child on the back seat of the tandem. If you don’t have a tandem, a trail-a-bike can turn your regular bicycle into a child-friendly bicycle for two during family outings.
2. Swimming — Even the little ones can wear life vests and water wings and splash to their hearts’ content. Exercise in the water can vary from swimming to diving for dropped objects to learning how to float to kick-paddling an inflatable raft. It’s a fantastic way to use lots of muscles and have fun doing it!
3. Horseback riding — I realize that not everyone has easy access to this activity. We’ve been blessed by some friends with horses, tack, and generous hearts. Horseback riding provides strength-training for our autistic daughter, and the rest of us get our exercise leading her around the corral.
4. Gardening — Gardening may not look like exercise at first, but think of all the stretching it involves. When you combine that stretching with carrying, digging, raking, and hoeing, you understand why it’s easy to work up a sweat in your garden.
5. Walking the dog — Yes, you can walk without a dog, but a dog is great motivation to get up in the mornings and get outside for a walk. Walking is excellent exercise coupled with the added benefit of getting outdoors for a while.

What other family-friendly recreational activities do you like to do? Leave a comment and share your ideas.

Here’s a great Proverbs Bible study you can do all together as a family, or assign to your older children to do as an independent study, during the new year.

Step 1: Pick a topic that the book of Proverbs addresses.

Some good possibilities include friends, parents and children, our speech, a fool v. a wise person, pride and humility, money, our relationship with God, food and drink, self-control, handling temptation.

Step 2: Read a chapter of Proverbs each day for a month and look for verses about your selected topic.

An easy way to keep track of which chapter to read is to look at the date. On the 1st of the month, read chapter 1; on the 2nd, read chapter 2; and so on. Since most months have 31 days, you’ll be able to get through all 31 chapters quite simply.

Step 3: Write down what you find out about your selected topic.

Whenever you see a verse that relates to your topic, write down what it says about that topic. And be sure to note the reference (chapter and verse).

Step 4: At the end of the month, look back through all your findings and summarize them.

Read through the truths that you have found during the month. If you are doing this study as a family, discuss your topic and try to state your findings as general guidelines for life. If your older children are doing the study on their own, they can write their summaries.

Step 5: Select another topic for the next month and repeat Steps 1 to 4.

This Bible study is a great way to get the wisdom from Proverbs into your hearts and minds, as well as develop a habit of daily Bible reading. It’s a simple study that can bring profound results.

You can easily make a notebook in which to keep track of your topics and record your findings and summaries. If you would prefer a professionally designed notebook with instructions and encouragement, Wisdom for Life: A Proverbs Bible Study is available on our sister site.

Let’s make 2009 a year of getting God’s wisdom into our hearts and minds—and our children’s.

Tricia Simmons graciously sent me a copy of her new book, Intentional Parenting. It was refreshing to be encouraged and challenged once again in this great responsibility we have as parents.

I especially like her word picture of training our children to cling to Jesus as a vine is trained to cling to a stake or pillar as it grows. Great illustration in the chapter “Train up a Child”! It’s so helpful to think in terms of binding our children to Jesus and trimming away anything that may hinder their growth in the right direction.

Other chapters remind us of our job to teach them diligently the things of the Lord, to be careful that we hold ourselves to the same standard of holiness that we hold up to our children, and to be cautious of allowing the enemy’s lies to gain any foothold in our own thinking or our little ones’.

Tricia reminds us of the important place that Scripture should have in our homes and in our teaching. And she emphasizes the roles that mothers and fathers have been given to fulfill, including a chapter on discipline.

Each chapter ends with helpful, practical tips for living out the principles in everyday life, plus a heartfelt prayer.

Tricia has packed a lot of truth and wisdom into about 100 pages. If you’re looking to recharge your parenting batteries, grab a copy of Intentional Parenting: His Word, Our Actions, Eternal Rewards by Tricia Simmons.

Last Saturday I held a yard sale. It was not a giant affair, but it did require that I sit out on the driveway for the better part of the day. When I came back into the house that afternoon (after earning a whopping $10!), a clean house greeted me. The girls had done the Saturday cleaning. In the kitchen, no traces of lunch remained; they had done the dishes. And in the background I could hear the hum of the clothes dryer; they were doing laundry too.

Does that scenario sound like a fairy tale? I promise that it’s true, and what’s more, it’s possible for your family. Keep in mind that my girls are now ages 10-18. Saturday’s pleasantness was the outgrowth of years of habit training and practicing home skills related to housework.

Below I’ll try to outline for you how I went about teaching those three areas of home skills: cleaning, laundry, and dishes. Keep in mind that these skills are important for boys as well as for girls. Your sons will be able to minister to their future wives in wonderful ways if they have experience in these home skills, plus they will be learning good stewardship of household possessions.

As you read through the ideas below, you might also want to review the five steps of teaching a home skill that are posted on our blog.

Cleaning

At our house we have a Weekly cleaning list: dust, vacuum, mop, clean bathrooms, change sheets. Your list may look different, and that’s okay. When the children were younger, our list looked a little different from what it does today. We would have several “walk through” times each day for tidying up toys (before lunch, before snacks, before supper, and before bedtime story). And we would do one cleaning task each day. With just the one task, I could concentrate on teaching the children how to do that skill and feel like we got something accomplished. The down-side was that there was never a day that the whole house was clean. On Mondays it would get vacuumed, but the mopping didn’t get done until Tuesdays, and the bathrooms didn’t get done until Thursdays. But for that season of life, the important thing was training the children.

Now that they all know how to do all the tasks, we can “divide and conquer” the whole house’s weekly cleaning in just a couple of hours. You will get to that point too if you are faithful in teaching your little ones every week.

Don’t overlook occasional cleaning jobs also. You might want to make three lists for these: monthly, seasonal, and yearly. Monthly cleaning tasks might include larger jobs like cleaning out the refrigerator or the van. Seasonal jobs could include items that we do for “Spring House-cleaning” or “Fall House-cleaning”: washing baseboards, cleaning light fixtures, washing curtains, organizing closets, and swapping out spring and summer clothes for fall and winter clothes. Yearly tasks might include cleaning the garage or organizing the basement or attic. A book that helped me think through those occasional jobs is The Family Manager’s Everyday Survival Guide by Kathy Peel.

Each mom or dad’s cleaning lists will look different because we all have different comfort levels. Some want bathrooms to be cleaned every day; others are happy with once a week. Some wash windows every month; others try to remember to do it once a year. The point is not necessarily which cleaning tasks you do when, the point is to teach and train your children to do those tasks safely and carefully.

Laundry

Here is the order in which I taught the girls to do the different parts of laundry:

1. Sorting—Children who are learning their colors can help you sort laundry. Since we have a household full of girls, we have a separate load for all the pink and red items. Little ones who know “red” think it’s great fun to pull out the red clothes and put them in a “red” pile. You can do the same with whites and other colors or kinds of clothing (like jeans).
2. Fold towels—Even small children can fold a washcloth nicely. Hand towels are a little larger, and I usually save bath towels for older children to do so the size doesn’t frustrate the young ones. Since wrinkled towels are not a huge issue, I start the children folding linens first.
3. Wash and dry towels and sheets—As with wrinkled towels, if a red washcloth gets in a load of white sheets, it’s not a huge deal. So I let the children practice their laundry skills on linens before moving to clothes, which are a little more noticeable.
4. Wash and dry clothes—If the children are used to doing the linens, they need only expand on those skills now to include checking for stains that might need treating and determining which washer cycle to use for various types of clothing.
5. Fold clothes—At our house we try to hang up or fold clothes as they come out of the dryer in order to save on ironing time. Two skills are added at this point: listening for the dryer to buzz and responding in short order, and folding the clothes neatly enough to avoid ironing them.
6. Ironing—Though we try to avoid clothes that require ironing, I still consider it important that our children know how to iron. They use that skill in sewing and quilting also, and they need to know how to use the iron when needed.

Dishes

As with laundry, I have a sequence in mind that moves from easiest to more difficult skills:

1. Set the table—Even young children can learn to put one plate at each place. You can stack the plates at one end of the table so the child doesn’t have to hold the heavy stack, and he can simply take a plate off the top and set it in place. You can also put the knives, forks, and spoons in piles for the child to distribute. One clever mom I know made placemats with outlines of where the silverware should go, so the child was able to place the fork in the fork-shaped outline and successfully set the table like a little puzzle.
2. Clear the table—To me, clearing the table is harder than setting it because you have to watch out for drips, spills, and accidents that happen when the plate is not held level in transit. So clearing the table comes later, after setting the table is mastered.
3. Unload the dishwasher—Smaller children can start with stacking the clean dishes on the clean countertop for Mom to put into the upper cabinets. However, as soon as he can use a small step-stool safely, a child can also put dishes in those upper cabinets.
4. Load the dishwasher—I find loading the dishwashing somewhat like doing a puzzle with lots of variables. Some items are consistent, but it’s more complicated than just taking clean dishes out, so this task comes farther down on the list.
5. Dry the dishes—Again, it’s easier to deal with clean dishes first before moving on to messing with the dirty ones.
6. Wash the dishes—Slippery, soapy water and crusted-on food create lots of room for error, so I hold off on this step until last. Besides, we rarely have dishes that aren’t put in the dishwasher, so it’s not a big issue at our house. If your house has no dishwasher, simply skip 3. and 4. above.

Whew! I didn’t mean to write such a long post. I hope these little tidbits help you think through how you want to approach the home skill of housework with your children. Training now will lay a wonderful foundation for your children’s futures, plus you’ll reap the benefits of a shared workload and maybe even a profitable day of yard sale.