Your response to the “Raising Gentlemen” post from last week kind of caught me off guard – in a great way! I didn’t expect others to be so excited about the prospect of teaching our boys manners, but I’m so glad to hear many of you are feeling the same way!
Raising gentlemen has much to do with manners and chivalry, but there are other parts as well, and one of those parts just seemed to click with the boys these past two weeks:
Chores!
During 31 Days of Family Ties, I talked about sharing the workload with your family and how I have struggled with delegating in the past. In the past two weeks, I’ve made a concentrated effort to get the boys more involved with jobs around the house on a daily basis and on cleaning day.
And…
They love it!
Big J was counting down the days this week until he could scrub the toilets. I am NOT kidding.
The boys teamed up to rinse the dishes and load the dishwasher every day after lunch this week. They both did several jobs on cleaning day, including dusting and vacuuming. Every Wednesday, the boys help gather the trash from around the house.
I never anticipated them being excited to help around the house and maybe that’s why I didn’t ask before now: I didn’t want to fight them on it. It hasn’t ended up being a fight at all!
Sure, they still grumble when I ask them to clean up their toys at the end of the day – they’re not perfect. I asked Little J to put a stuffed animal away from off the table so we coud eat and he crumbled into a sad pile on the floor. Oh the drama…
But we have made HUGE progress in raising helpful gentlemen!
{The Happy Housewife has a great printable with age-appropriate chores for your kids! Definitely check that out!}
And we also had a great first week learning about WHY we use manners. The Manners Made Easy
There was a great quote at the beginning of lesson one that I just had to make into a coloring page for the boys. Coloring pages a great way to keep busy hands occupied while you read and discuss a lesson – my boys pay much better attention when they are doing a little coloring while listening!
And I’m adding that coloring page as a free printable just for you!
Just click on the image or here to download!
And have a happy weekend with your ladies and gentlemen!
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I'm Erin, a wife, boy mom x 3, writer, and runner in Nebraska! I'm excited to share all my favorites relating to faith, family, fashion, and fitness in this space! Enjoy! 
It is so good to see others teaching their children to have manners. I have been doing my best to teach my children manners for years. It was the way I was brought it. It just shows respect. I have also been told that it is a waste of time and we are too nice and trusting by showing manners. I don’t care though, I will continue to use them myself and continue to teach my kids. Thank you for sharing your resources and how you are teaching your children!
Keep it up, Joy! I love what you’re doing!
Thanks for sharing these great tips! I love the pictures of your boys (espescially the one where he is cleaning the toilet…lol:) The printable is great too! Think I will try this with my 4-year-old. Sometimes she gets a little too comfortable and forgets to use her manners:) This is a great tool for reminding her about what is important.
Of course, Sara! Hope she likes the coloring page!
Great post! I definitely need to take notes for later. Tonight I watched my 1 1/2 year old take his bowl from dinner and “wash” it in his toy sink. I can’t help but wonder how to keep up this momentum. LOL!
Oh, that is SO cute! I’m trying to keep it “fun” and be encouraging so they WANT to keep going!
My 6.5 year old is working on a book she walked by looking for the stapler and saw the picture of Little J holding the printable. She glanced at it and said, “That’s true.”