large families

How do you get the kids to help out. Mine do, especially if they want somethinf, but a lot of times it like pulling teeth! dreamjapan

i trained them to start helping me with chores when they are much younger. we started at folding their own clothes when they are 3 years old. cutting vegetables when cooking. buying a small broom for them to help me when im cleaning the house and a lot of things. they grow up doing that and it became the usual thing for them. now that they are in there teens. they cook, wash dishes, bring out the trash. and its very convinient for me because im a single mom. sometimes they forget or idnore the chores but they still do it specially when they feel that i am getting angry already.

I thought I had my kids trained but they know how to get out of things... especially the oldest two. The oldest boy has just started high school. It's corrspondence course so I thouht he would have more time to help out but he has a lot of work to do, so that is his excuse. The second boy just started junior high school (I'm in Japan where the school year starts in April, so we are just finishing the first term)the past two weeks he has been studying for end of term tests which are a big thing. So that has been his excuse. But with the summer coming I am going to need more help as I get really sick with the heat, I'm from England and the heat and humidity don't sit well with me!

Eight kids.... That is amazing!! I know that with four kids I never know what is going, on you must be run off your feet! but it's a great feeling!!

In Japan I still get stares when we all go out together. My kids classmates are usually from a one child family. Having kids here is very expensive, everything from clothes ($10 for a simple tee shirt for my five year old, I go to recyle shops!!), to medical fees (free medicine only until 3 years old, most doctors give loads of medicine, so if the kids get the flu we are looking at $50 to $100 each), then there is free schools, which we pay up $150 for, plus when kids get to junior high school there is uniforms, sports wear, special school bags, I think we paid nearly $300 this April for DS2 to start junior high and he had a jacket from his older brother!! Also most kids have after school activities which can put you back $150 to $300 per kid. There is no welfare system here and no real help. The government in Japan is worrying about the falling birth rate but there is no help to raise kids, so parents, especially young parents, would rahter have just one or two kids and spend a load of money on them. It is hard on my kids, the two oldest seem to understand, but my 9 year and 5 year just don't get why they can't have all the lastest games and toys. But when I spend almost $200 a week on food there isn't much left over. Things are so tight this year that I am already saving for Christmas. Are you close to your cousins? My Mom was the youngest of eight but I hardly know my cousins. That is kind of sad for me.

Things are always tight here. My kids don't have any of the latest things. They just deal. We don't do a lot of things smaller families do. We mostly just hang out watching TV. There usually isn't much left over after paying bills for extra stuff which is why we are moving back in with my dad. He needs help fixing up his house and we need to save money to buy our own house (he won't charge us much rent). We have lived alone for only 2 years. The rest of the 7 years I have had kids we lived with my dad. My kids complain all the time about stuff. My oldest was really upset this last school year because she couldn't go on the fun trips her girl scout troop went on because we either didn't have the money or I had no way to even get her to the drop off points. She had to miss all but 1 of them so didn't have all the patches her friends had. But that's life. I used to be close to my cousins when I was a kid but I didn't live near them. I only saw them a few times a year. There is a big age range between us and I was one of the youngest (I think I was actually like 3rd youngest of them, lol). Now I only see them once a year, if I'm lucky. I miss them all. They are all good friends with each other and their kids are growing up together because they all live in Michigan for the most part.

That is so amazing. I live far away from my own family, they are in England and I'm in Japan. It has been hard especially five years ago when my youngest was born premature and my Mom got cancer at the same time. Talk about conflict, I couldn't leave my daughter to be with my Mom, but I still feel guilty about it. I'm kind of hoping that when my kids grow up that we can live near each other. We own land in the next little villiage here, my dream is that each kid has their own house and we can visit, that any grandkids I have can be friends!! You are very lucky!! dreamjapan