Cleaning House: A Mom's 12-month experiment to rid her home of youth entitlement by Kay Wills Wyma

from goodreads

4 stars

I hope you had a very merry Christmas and that Santa left nice things for you under the tree. I had a nice relaxing day, though the baby kept trying to eat paper, the older kids toys and everyone else's chocolates! As the new year approaches my thoughts have been focused on how I can change for the better and become a better person, wife and mother. This book was a great one to read at this time of reflection.

Synopsis

The author realized she was enabling her children to always be dependent on her and her husband. She decided she that she had to teach her children to work and that a magic cleaning fairy did not exist. Over the 12 months she allowed her children to develop skills that they will need in life. The book is based on her blog.

My Thoughts

I loved this book. I think it is one I will buy at some point and refer to often. It is full of ideas on how to make our kids more confident in themselves as well as some simple things we can try to help them along. Parenting can be a daunting task, especially when trying to teach life skills. It takes patience and tenacity to not want to jump in and do it for them. Wills Wyma, is able to inspire me to be more patient and to really teach and empower my kids.

I like how she is a human and shows us her flaws. She is not claiming to be an expert. She makes this a relatable narrative.

What dropped it from a 5 star rating was the overall style of the book. It read more as a blog then a book. It is almost as if they just copied and pasted her blog entries. Sometimes that works, in this case it did not. You were reading it almost as if she was doing the experiment right then, even though she had done it over a year ago. She used to terms like "yesterday" and "this month..." which just made it for a more awkward read. I think it just needed to be edited so it could be read as a book not a blog.

On the whole, this was a great read. I am glad I read it. It is very entertaining. It is great for parents young and old. It has something that anyone can relate to. I look forward to implementing some of her ideas in my household.