Daily Routines are a Good Thing

One week into the new schoolday routine and we are still on track! YAY! We still need to work on the afternoon chores getting done in a timely manner, but I am sure that will come. Perhaps some sort of reward system being set up will be helpful. We shall see.
My husband and I are under the belief that if you get your kids into a daily routine that they will be better for it in the long run. My husband got into the routine of getting up with an alarm and showering each morning when he was in elementary school and to this day he has stuck with it. My oldest son has been getting up to an alarm for about 8 years now and he does really well with it. We are starting to see some progress with son #2. I am hoping that these good habits will stay with them throughout life. I think that if you teach your children good life habits they will be more successfull in whatever they do.
Habits such as cooking, cleaning, childcare, daily routines, money management, and of course the value of human life. I think that all children, regardless of what sex they are, should learn these things. I have 3 boys and a girl. My youngest 2 (a boy and a girl) are too young at ages 6 months and 3 years to do much in the way of cooking and childcare, but in time they also will learn. The 3 year old has started learning the cleaning, some money management, daily routines, and value of human life. She will help when and where she is allowed to with the cooking. And she will also help with feeding the baby some cereal when she is told to do that. She is my diaper and blanket runner also, so she is starting to learn in the childcare department. We try and keep some routine with her since she has started preschool, but sometimes life gets in the way of that. My oldest two are boys and both have done their share of cooking, cleaning, childcare, daily routines, money management and valuing human life. I feel comfortable in my oldest son's abilities to run his own household someday soon (way too soon for my taste, but that's another story). He can cook pretty much whatever he sets his mind to. All he needs to do is find a good recipe for it, and he knows how to locate one. He can bake like nobody's business. He has had experience in the childcare department from feeding and bathing to diapering and dressing from newborn on up. He knows the correct way to clean a house (whether he chooses to do it the right way or the lazy way is always a big question). He has proven himself in the daily routine department, and is learning the money management thing now that he is working his first job outside the home. The value of human life is something that we instill in our children from the beginning. I am very open with my children with how I feel about that. Life begins at conception. Regardless of whether or not that life was planned, it was a life that God created, and HE has his own purposes for. We are not to question those purposes.
I have yet to see how successful I am with the raising of my children, for they are not yet grown, but I think that so far my husband and I are doing a pretty darn good job, and that is good enough for me!