The Coop Ep. #07: Raising Children with Love, Grit, and Purpose with RuthAnn Zimmerman

Introduction:

We believe food looks and tastes better when it comes from a mason jar and that every home should have a well used cast iron skillet. We believe in starting where you are in being a good steward, and that homesteading is a mindset. First, we believe that our great grandmothers were right about almost everything and that the best conversations happen around the coup.

Anna Sakawsky:

Alright, welcome everyone to episode seven of the coop. Just quickly apologies for a little bit of a late start. We had a few technical issues, so hopefully we’ll be good to go for the rest of this live stream, but stick with us if we do have any technical issues. We’re going to work as quickly as possible to get everybody back online and get things up and running again. So welcome if you are just joining us here for the first time. Once a month we host educational and inspirational conversations with the homesteaders and writers that contribute to Homestead Living Magazine, the ones who are at the forefront of the modern home setting movement that we are all a part of. So my name is Anna Sakawsky and I am the editor in chief of Homestead Living Magazine. And today I am so excited to sit down with Ruth Ann Zimmerman of Homestead with the Zimmermans to talk all about how to raise children with grit, discipline, resilience, integrity, character, all those good things that we want to instill in our kids and how we can use home setting to do that.

So I’m so excited to introduce Ruthanne. Just briefly, if you don’t know who she is, Ruthanne and her husband Elvin have spent over two decades building a 21 acre homestead that’s not just about growing food, it’s about growing character, faith, and relationships with family. She’s also the author of the upcoming book, the Heart of the Homestead, and she is featured on the cover of our upcoming August issue of Homestead Living Magazine. So I’m assuming that probably most people who are here are subscribed already, and so you’ll be getting that sent to your mailbox very soon, the next few weeks. But if you are not, there should be a link right below the video here where you can go ahead and subscribe. And if you do subscribe today, you will still be in time to get the August issue delivered to your mailbox. So make sure that you are subscribed.

So today again, we’re going to be talking all about how Homestead Chores teach kids work ethic, discipline and responsibility, starting with the smallest tasks, and then building on that as our children get older, why character, community and faith are the real harvest of home setting when we’re playing the long game. We’ll talk about Ruth Ann’s journey from the Old Order Mennonite community to a more modern, faith-driven homestead and practical ways to involve kids in farm life without overwhelming them or yourself, which is a topic that I’m very excited to talk about because that is something that we struggle here with on the Daily with our kids. So I’m really excited for this conversation. But before we get into it, I would just like to introduce our sponsor today. So the Coop is brought to you in part by another Homestead Living publication, plain Values Magazine.

So Plain Values is our sister publication. They’re a quarterly magazine whose mission is to lead chronicle and promote the faith centered simple living movement to relentlessly publish the hope-filled stories that are increasingly difficult to find in a cynical world. From growing your own food to building beautiful families and friendships. This magazine covers it all. You can subscribe for just $29 for the year. You can head over to plain values.com to subscribe today. Again, that is plain values.com. Alright, so with that being said, let me do the full introduction. So Ruth Ann Zimmerman and her husband Elvin have been homestead on 21 acres in northeast Iowa since 2001, raising their seven children in a life rooted in faith, self-sufficiency, and hard work. So from their beginnings in an old order Mennonite community to building a modern homestead, they’ve made intentional living a cornerstone of their family. Ruth Ann’s homestead includes dairy cows, meat, birds, pigs, goats, and a sprawling garden, all tended by the whole family. Her upcoming book, the Heart of the Homestead Shares How Daily Chores and Home Setting Life Cultivate Character and Connection. She’s a writer, speaker, and advocate for raising kids with grit and purpose, and as I said, she’s also featured on the cover of the August issue of Homestead Living Magazine. So without further ado, please join me in welcoming Ruth Ann Zimmerman to the show. Hello, Ruthann, how are you this morning?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Hello?

Anna Sakawsky:

This afternoon, I guess where you are.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Yes, it is afternoon here and I am doing well.

Anna Sakawsky:

Fantastic. It looks like you’ve been busy out on the homestead already this morning. Looks like you’re,

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Yes. It’s been a very wet gardening season and when that happens, the weeds just grow and grow and grow. So the boys and I and our daughter pooled a whole wheelbarrow full of weeds this morning and then we jumped in the pool and coat off and now here I am.

Anna Sakawsky:

Perfect. Well thank you for taking time out to join us in this conversation today. I know that this is going to be so valuable for so many people. And actually just before we get started, I would love to know in the chat, and I see tons of people who have been in the chat already letting us know where they’re all from. As per usual, we’ve got people from all over the continent, well all over the states anyway. We usually have people from Canada, Vancouver, bc, Canada as well from all over the place. So I would also love to know in the comments just to kind of gauge the temperature of where everybody’s at. Who here has children? There are some of you that maybe don’t have kids yet. Maybe it’s your grandchildren that you are wanting to instill some of these values in some of the ages of your children.

Just pop in the comments maybe how many kids you have, what the age range is, just to get an idea of where everybody’s at here, four kids, one child, and a 15-year-old boy, three kids, five to nine grandchildren, all grown, but one day hope for grandkids. So that’s kind of what I had a feeling that we were going to have people from all over over the spectrum. And I think it’s just important to note because I think it’s easier sometimes to have this conversation when we’re just starting out and we think this is how I’m going to do it right from the start. But that’s not always the reality. Some of us have kids that are older or have already, our children are grown and left home and now we are trying to get back to these roots with our grandkids and wondering if we’ve maybe missed the boat. So we’re going to touch on some of those points as well. So before we get in, seven children, zero to 17. Well, 15, 17, 20, 23. Fantastic. Okay. So before we get into all the kind of practical advice that I’m sure Ruthann has to share with us today, I want to just give a moment for you to share a little bit more about your story. So just can you give us a 50,000 foot view of your background, your upbringing, and what led you to homesteading in the first place?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So as you already mentioned, my husband, Alvin and I, we were raised old Order Mennonite in the old order Mennonite community. So that’s a very self-sufficient community. So homesteading wasn’t a new idea for us and we’ve already told our kids that we went through a phase where we’re like, absolutely we’re not doing that because we know exactly how much work homesteading is. We already knew before we started how much work gardening and preserving is how much work it is to have a family milk cow. So we kind of went through this period where we’re like, no, it’s easier to get it at the grocery store, why have your own milk cow? All of that. But that phase was very, very short. And then our oldest daughter had some health issues that kind of drove us back to our roots very quickly. And also when we left the old order Mennonite culture and became immersed in the modern world, one of the glaring differences to my husband and I was the lack of work ethic and character that we saw in the modern world. And that kind of turned us back to the culture of our childhood and asked, we asked the question, where did we learn work ethic? How did we learn hard work? And we both agreed that it was chores, it was having lots of chores and taking care of animals before we went to school, all of that. So our journey is kind of twofold. It started because we realized that we were getting sick from eating from the grocery store and the long-term goal was to develop character and work ethic in our children.

Anna Sakawsky:

Right. Okay. Alright. I find this so interesting and maybe it really has to do with being raised in the old order Mennonite community, but you said that you had this realization when you had kids that nowadays you’re seeing so many kids that don’t have that work ethic that you were raised with and that was something that you really wanted to instill in your own kids. Why was that important to you? Because I think in our modern society and our modern culture, we’re often kind of taught that, I guess almost the healthy way to raise kids nowadays is just to give them a happy, carefree childhood that’s all fun and no work. But you really wanted to push back against this and had the main priority for you was to instill work ethic in your kids. Why was this a top priority for you?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Well, work ethic really comes down to self-discipline. So to me, work ethic and self-discipline are the same thing because people, I just call it work ethic because people get briskly when we talk about self-discipline. Okay. So when you can say, I can do hard things, there is no stopping you. Once a child knows that they conquered something that was hard and they didn’t want to do it, but they succeeded, there is no stopping them when it comes to their spiritual life, their personal life, their relationships, that is what we wanted for our children. We wanted the work ethic, which is the knowledge that nothing is too hard. Even when things are hard, even when things are falling apart, even when I want to quit, I can do this. And what it looks like on our farm right now is the cow kicks the bucket. I mean, the other morning the flies were so bad and the boys were milking and they’re nine and 10, and they were so proud, they said, I’ve got so much foam mom and they had probably two and a half gallons of milk and she swiped at a fly and it all went into the mud.

And so it’s very disappointing, but that doesn’t mean that it’s too hard for them. It doesn’t mean that the next morning we don’t try the same thing and work ethic go hand in hand. And it’s the knowledge of I can do hard things, I can keep pulling weeds even when the sweat’s running into my eyes because we’re almost done. And having that grit and determination and the knowledge of how strong I really am, the self-discipline that is what we wanted to give our children is that self-discipline of I can do it.

Anna Sakawsky:

Right. And was that for you more of just a long-term goal of what sort of adults are they going to turn out to be? Or was it more so how can they be contributing members of the family? Or was it a little bit of both? Where did that come from for you?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

I think mostly it’s a long-term goal of our long-term goal is for them to serve Jesus Christ no matter where God calls them to. But also a short-term goal is for the family to function as a unit, we need everybody to pull their own weight. And for the homestead to work, we need everybody to have self-discipline and work ethic. Otherwise it’s not going to work. So just if we don’t want to eat from the grocery store, we’re all going to have to pitch in. That’s a short-term day-to-day goal. And then long-term goal is relationships, either personal or as they grow older, they’ll have marriages and then also that personal relationship with Jesus.

Anna Sakawsky:

So just before we get onto the next question, I do just want to mention to everybody I forgot to mention at the beginning there will be a replay available. So if you can’t stick around for the whole show or if you would like to rewatch this, I’m already, the wheels are turning in my head. I’m like, I want to rewatch this with my family because this is something that we are actually battling right now. I have a daughter who’s almost nine, and then I have a son who’s two and a half and our daughter is one that she’s very capable. She’s at an age where she can do a lot, but it’s also the age where we’re really struggling to get her on board with doing some of this stuff. So that brings up another question is how do you explain that to children, especially younger children in a way that resonates with them? For example, you said, if we don’t want to eat from the grocery store, we’ll have to pitch in. But if that’s not an intrinsic value for your kids, if they’re like, I don’t care if we eat from the grocery store or not, how do you communicate that to your kids in a way that makes them feel like they truly are important, contributing members of the family and that you’re all working towards a common goal that is important to everybody?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So children don’t, one of the traps that we fall into is we expect our children to reason the way 40 year olds do.

And their frontal lobe is not that developed. They’re never going to see their goal. They don’t care if you’re going to have to go to the grocery store and they shouldn’t, right? That’s, they shouldn’t be burdened with, well, we don’t want to have to eat cereal, so this is why we’re making granola, things like that. And for our family, it works well for me to break it down. What do they, what is their goal? Their goal is to get back to the pool or the Legos, that’s their goal or their book. So I break it down and make it their goal, my long-term goal, they’re never going to catch on to that at 10 years old. So their short-term goal is to get back to their Lego play or the pool or their bikes. And so I always connect the chore that we’re doing to what they want, and I’m like, Hey, listen, you helped me hang out these two loads of laundry, then you can go right back to your Legos and I’ll give you an hour to play with your Legos before I call you to do the weeding. So breaking it down for their own goals is very helpful because I don’t like to burden my children with all the, if they ask, I’ll tell them, well, yeah, pasteurized milk, I mean, I can go on and on about pasteurized milk, but I don’t beat it into them every day, right? Because their frontal lobe is not fully developed. They’re little selfish human beings, which is perfectly normal. There’s nothing wrong with them. And they want to know when they can do what they want to do

Introduction:

Again.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

And so breaking it down and giving them a goal as what do you want to do? What do want to do after this? But I always say, if you must do it with a good attitude, because if you have a bad attitude, then I have to add another chore to it because you need more practice having a good attitude. Or sometimes I’ll say, I’ll help you hang this laundry as long as you’re not whining and complaining. If you’re whining and complaining, I will walk away and it’s going to take you a lot longer to do it by yourself.

Anna Sakawsky:

And so how do you deal then? I am sure that you’ve probably with seven children come up against this at least a couple times with some of them with pushback. Have you experienced that where you’ve just had either one of your children just be very resistant to this or just not doing their chores or not doing them to your standards? What sort of discipline do you have? How do you deal with that? Because I know, and again, and I hate to throw my poor daughter under the bus, but again, she’s just a regular 8-year-old. She would rather be dancing and cartwheeling and listening to music and all the things that young girls like to do. And she struggles sometimes with focus, but I also, I’m very cautious that I don’t want her to hate what we’re doing and grow up resenting it. And so finding that balance and having appropriate levels of discipline and expectations and balancing that with not pushing them away. If they’re super resistant, how do you manage that?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Okay, so the first thing I’m going to tell you is don’t worry about her hating the lifestyle or resisting it. That’s going to happen. She’s going to go through a stage and it’s okay. She’ll come back around that your goal is not to raise a little homesteader. You want to give her enough knowledge so that she can choose for herself, but they are going to absolutely hate it. My children would sell every one of our milk cows and buy milk from the grocery store if it were up to them. I’m not even, this

Anna Sakawsky:

Is very good to hear.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Yeah, they would. But the thing is the pushback, I allow it, I allow them, because I want to raise independent thinkers. So I’ll allow them to say, why do we have to move the fences again? We just move them yesterday. Why can’t we give the cows enough pasture? We do rotational grazing. Why can’t we give them enough pasture to last four or five days? That’s allowed. I’ll allow that and I’ll use that as an opportunity to teach them why we do rotational grazing. It doesn’t mean that the next time we have to move fences, they’re not going to have the same kind of complaints. And I’m going to then ask them, well, you tell me why are we moving the fences today Again, and slowly but surely you get through it, but it doesn’t change in one day. It’s kind of like this long five year window of you saying the same things over and over and over and then some days asking them to tell you.

And then there’s those days where you really just say, you can’t talk anymore because your attitude stinks and we’re just going to get this job done and then we’re going to spend some time apart and then we’re going to come back together. So it’s kind of a five year goal and they’re going to whine and complain through most of it. And it’s the stage from about, usually it starts to show up about 9, 8, 7, 8, 9 depends, and it almost lasts until they’re teenagers and that’s, I call it the able but not willing stage. So they’re able, but they’re not willing to do anything, and you’re just going to stay consistent. You’re going to stay consistent with your consequences and you’re going to stay consistent with your words. You’re going to say the same things for the same kind of whining. You’re just going to say, well, it sounds like you need more practice. And that’s the consequence that we use for almost anything, attitudes, poorly done chores, all of that. You just need more practice and more practice looks like more chores. You need more opportunity. Do them. Right, or to do them without an attitude or to do them without whining.

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah, that’s great. I love that wording of you just need more practice. That is again, something, and just again, so everybody is aware in the comments, if you do have questions that come up as we go here, please feel free to pop your questions in the comments. We are going to have time at the end for a q and a, so if anything comes up for you, please don’t hesitate to ask the questions and we’ll probably just save them to the end. But so many questions are coming up for me as we talk about this. But yeah, I love the way you talk about it. You just need more practice because I think that we do, we live in a culture that is all about instant gratification, right? It’s all about trying to get the reward right away, and that’s just not reality in many cases.

My husband and I actually just had this conversation yesterday. He was getting frustrated and I was the one this time trying to calm him down and just say, because he was like, why are kids not listening and this and that? I said, because they’re kids. And it just takes, this isn’t going to be something that where all of a sudden you say it and overnight they’re doing it. It’s just going to have to be consistent repetition. I remember that’s always what my mom told me was that parenting is just repeating yourself over and over and over again.

But for our daughter as well, I find she wants that instant gratification too, and I’m trying to teach her that that doesn’t happen overnight and you’re not an expert in something all of a sudden because you did it once. You need to keep practicing and keep trying. So it is a slow grind for sure. So when it comes to some of the chores that you have your kids do, and we’ll get into some specifics of chores that you have for your kids on your homestead and different chores that you maybe recommend people starting with and moving into as kids get older. But how do you approach, do you and Elvin decide what chores you’re going to assign to different children based on their ages and maturity levels and all that? Or do you work with your kids? Do you have a family meeting? Do you play on their strengths and go, Hey, you’re really good at this, or you really love to work with the animals and you really love to be in the garden? Do you let them have any input on that?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

No,

Anna Sakawsky:

No,

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

No. Mostly because, I mean, I know who does best at what, but we cannot only do the things that we like is kind of the goal. We all have to do things that we don’t like, and if that means that we just have to work a little harder because it’s not our first love or not our passion, that’s okay. Just because you don’t like to milk the cow doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have to do it. Elvin works full-time. The kids and I are primarily the ones that take care of the animals and the garden because he’s gone. So he lets it up to me. I do use him as backup when, especially with the boys when I’m like, Hey, this is an issue I’ve been having all week with this child, will you take them aside and work your magic on them? Because I haven’t been able to see any progress and things like that. So he’s always there to back me up with those hard things.

Introduction:

But

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

No, the kids, they have to do all chores at one time or another with chore rotations, all of that, because they don’t get to do just what they want to do. That’s a very important life skill is. And one of the things, so I have the three little boys and then their 15-year-old sister, and it works really well for me to let her do the housework and the boys and I just do all the animal and the garden chores. And I thought that would be maybe how this summer goes. But she prefers the outside chores. She prefers milking the cows over making breakfast, and she’s milked the cow since she’s like eight years old. So I thought she could kind of phase out of that and the boys and I could do it, but she prefers milking the cow. So she’s in that chore rotation, and we all rotate and take turns to do chores, and we all have our favorite spots that we like, but it’s important to me that they continue to rotate through the chores and do the ones that aren’t their favorite.

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah, I like that. You actually wrote, I think in the article that you wrote for us, that when you and Alvin were trying to figure out where did we get this work ethic from that you came to the conclusion that maybe work ethic begins with simply doing things we don’t feel like doing. So you’ve mentioned that here today and that you communicate that to your kids again. How do you communicate that to them? What’s the bigger why that you, because I find often, I know when I was a kid, you kind of get that because I said so from your parents. And often kids I feel like will respond better if you explain why that’s important. Okay, great. You have to do things you don’t want to do. Why do you explain what’s the benefit to them and are they responsive to that?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So oftentimes my children don’t really ask, why do I have to do this? Because they’ve been born into this lifestyle, they might ask, I really dislike this, or why do we have to pull weeds? And I’ll often say, do you want the long answer or the short answer? So I feel like they kind of all already know why. Maybe it was more like my older children. But see, the thing that happens is when you have an 18 year age span with your children, you create this little microculture within your family and what you’ve taught. The older ones kind of leaks down into the younger ones, and you’re not really sure, did you teach the younger, did I teach the younger ones this or did they catch on? Because they’re always often working with an older sibling. But sometimes I’ll simply say, need to obey now. And you’ll understand later when I know that something is above their comprehension level or I know that they’re in no frame of mind, they’re not in a teachable frame of mind, they’re simply giving you pushback. And there’s a difference between as a child asking because they want to learn or are they asking because they’re looking for a way out.

So oftentimes when they’re giving pushback, you can tell them why this is good for them, but they’re not wanting to learn anyway. They’re only looking for a way out.

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So you touched on a couple interesting points. First of all, I think that I’ve heard this a lot with the age span of kids like that. And I think I hear this a lot with folks who have larger families because if they’ve raised their kids up, especially from the beginning that way, then lot of a lot of them tend to feel that as time goes on and they have older children and then they’ve got some younger children coming into the mix, that then those older kids will take on some of that responsibility and act as role models for the younger ones and that sort of thing. So I think in some ways, having that larger family can be easier if you’ve done this right from the start. Of course, not everybody has a large family, and not everybody has been doing this.

Maybe right from the start, we saw a whole bunch of people in the comments here who have kids of all ages, maybe some of them have already started this, some of them, I’m just looking at some of the comments here. Kawana had said, I wish I heard this interview 15 years ago. Linda had said, works best to start at birth and have a like-minded partner, which that is obviously in an ideal world, that is the case, but not everybody is maybe starting there. So we’re going to kind of get into that. But let’s start, first of all, if you are starting with, say your first child or first children, or you’re starting with little ones, what are some of the first chores that you recommend assigning to small children? Assuming that people have a homestead, even if it’s a smaller scale one. And again, not everybody is there yet. So we’ll touch on some tips that you might have for people that maybe don’t have the milk cows and don’t have all the animals and homestead chores for kids. But assuming someone has a homestead with enough homestead type chores and are starting with little ones, where do you recommend them starting?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

It’s a very good question. So in my book, the Heart of the Homestead, I have a whole chapter on childhood chores and I have chore lists in there for each age group, like say toddler stage. But tomorrow, tomorrow’s the eighth, right?

Anna Sakawsky:

Yes.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So tomorrow my publisher, sorry, I’m trying to get it together. But anyway, I’ve also written an ebook on chores, and I’ll share on my Instagram a link that if you pre-order my book, you get the childhood chores ebook downloaded for free. So I’ll share all of that on my Instagram tomorrow with the links.

Introduction:

Perfect.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So the toddler stage, when you’re just beginning, I call that the willing and able, no, the willing but not able stage.

So they’re willing, but they’re not able. Right? And I have a whole list of chores, and the thing about the tabular stage is they don’t work independently. They don’t really even know that they’re not part of you. So you’re not going to send them to do anything on their own. You’re just going to bring them along when you do laundry and all of that, and even putting dishes out of the dishwasher and putting them in the proper place, you’re not going to be sitting back on your chair. You’re going to be right there in the kitchen because you’re going to be talking to them and you’re going to be showing them where things go and you’re going to be encouraging them. So the toddler stage is really just bringing them alongside for everything that you do. And it’s a lot of talking. You’re going to be talking about why you have to do laundry, why you have to scrub this, there’s a stain here.

You scrub this, why work over here? And if you’re cooking, you’re going to allow them to stir the pot and all of that. So the toddler stage is really where you set the bases and you tell them everything. Because a thing that we often forget about the toddlers and preschools, preschool age children is just because they lack verbal communication, we often speak to them and treat them as if they can only comprehend the amount of words that they can say. And so once we start realizing that they can comprehend a lot more than their communication skills tell us, and we just lay it all out and we just talk to them all the time, that’s how you get elementary age students that are very, very competent and they don’t question why we have to milk the cow. Things like that. You’ve already been telling them since they were two years old.

One of my favorite independent chores for say the five year olds, four or five year olds, is to get the table ready for a meal because we practice family style dining, so we put a tablecloth on, we put all the plates on, and that’s my favorite chore for say four or five year olds. So you need four plates. So they’re counting and they’re getting the names of the family members. This person sits here, this person sits here, this person needs a knife and a fork and a spoon. This person still needs a cup. And it’s one of my very favorite independent chores for say a four or 5-year-old.

Anna Sakawsky:

And I love that because that’s something that anybody can do. You don’t again, need the milk cow to be setting the table. Yes. And then as they age, so you have the willing but not able, and then the next stage is, sorry, what was the next stage? Able but not willing. But not willing. Yes, but not willing, but not willing. So assuming you’ve started these chores from a young age, what does that look like as they progress and get a little bit older?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So you just continue to build on their skills. So if you stop looking at it as chores to help lighten my workload and look at it more as them developing skills, then you’re going to have direction for what’s chores to add next. So after they’ve mastered setting the table for dinner, then you’re probably going to bring them into the kitchen and you’re going to start giving them some responsibilities like, here, can you scramble these eggs? And you’re going to have lots of messes and accidents, but that’s okay. That’s how they learn skills. So you’re going to give them a little wire whisk and let them whip up the eggs. And once they’ve mastered that, then you’re going to move on to letting them scrape it in the cast iron. And each child, you’ll know when they’re ready. And some will push that they want to do the next thing.

Every morning they want to do a new thing. And those children are usually the ones that can multitask well, and they can develop multiple skills at the same time, and they grow really fast. You’re just going to have a lot of messes because they’re not very coordinated yet, but they always want to learn something new. So if we start approaching chores as skills and developing skills, and we build on each skill, the children tend to catch on and they get excited about doing new things, and it’s important that we allow them to do new things when they ask, can I scramble the eggs? Yes, you can scramble the eggs. It depends on your child and you know how old they are, you’re going to supervise a little more. Say, if my 10-year-old wants to scramble the eggs, I’m not going to hover as closely as when my 3-year-old wants to scramble the eggs. But it’s important that we feed them the information that they are developing skills, and we don’t say, no, this is not your job. This is mommy’s job.

Introduction:

Because

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Once they catch on that they’re building on skills and they’re learning new things, it’s going to take off very rapidly. And then somewhere about 10 years old, they’re going to put on the brakes and they’re saying, I now know what work is and I don’t want any more of it.

Anna Sakawsky:

Oh man. Okay. So alright, that happens. Now how do you deal with that stage?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

How do

Anna Sakawsky:

You bring them back in?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So we call this the feign incompetence stage and your best, I

Anna Sakawsky:

Think there’s some adults that are still in that

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Stage. Oh yeah. Yes. Your best weapon against feign incompetence is consistency. So with my boys, there’s no getting around me. You can pretend you don’t know how to do something and I’m just going to say the same words I’m going to say, well, it simply means you need more practice.

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah,

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

I guess

Anna Sakawsky:

You need to do it even more.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Yeah. So tomorrow morning, if you are saying you can’t empty out your side of the cow, well tomorrow morning you have to go and get started earlier then, right? Because fainting competence, what they want is to get out of a job. So if we make it counterproductive and we spend the next five years trying to convince them that the more you apply yourself and the faster you work, the sooner you can get back to doing what you want to do. And they spend the next five years trying to convince us that whatever chore we’ve given them is too hard for them. But our weapon as parents is just to be consistent, use as few words as possible. Excuse me, keep the same phrase. And just because every time you change up your phrase, they think, they tend to think there’s a little wiggle room and they might get around it. So I tend to use the same. I hear what you’re saying, that cow isn’t very easy to milk, but practice will get you. You can milk her. It just takes more practice because you need to develop muscle. And because I have three little boys, they’re nine, 10, and 12. I say, listen, if you were on a sports team and you weren’t able to make your basket, guess what your coach would do? He would have you practice, practice, practice.

Anna Sakawsky:

Right, yeah. Wouldn’t have you sit on the sidelines. Yeah.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Yep. He wouldn’t say, well, I guess you can go sit on the bench. It’s the same. You develop muscle, you develop self-discipline. And the other thing that happens is once they’ve done chores, often enough, it creates muscle memory. And they can do them without a whole lot of mental effort because they’re just going through the motions. And then that’s a whole other story of their daydreaming while they’re doing their chores. And then it’s time to switch up and have a chore rotation.

Anna Sakawsky:

Okay. Alright. Okay. And then before we get into the next question, let’s finish this off. So now we’ve got children that are in the faint incompetent stage. You said that tends to last for around five years, is that what you said?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Yes.

Anna Sakawsky:

So into the teen years, and I’m sure that this is a question that a lot of people have. What do the teen years look like? This is I think, the stage where most people go like, ah, teenagers and they don’t want to do anything. And that can be the toughest stage. What’s your experience been with teenagers?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So I think there’s two camps, and from what I see on social media, there’s people saying, oh, teenage years are terrible. And there’s people saying, teenage years are wonderful. I love them. And I’m here to say they’re both. And you can experience both within the same 24 hour period. That’s just teenagers, they can be moody. But I call the teenager stage the willing and able stage because if you’ve built relationship with your children from the time they’re little, you have the kind of relationship with your teenagers where you can say, okay, here’s what needs to get done today. What do you have? What are your plans? How can we work this out? And it’s more of almost like an adult to adult coworker or boss to employee kind of where you’re giving them the room to have their own hobbies and the things that they like to do and you expect them to help out.

But you’re going to be upfront with it and say, listen, what if. So for example, we do laundry twice a week. Mondays and Fridays, that’s been our schedule. It was my mom’s schedule and I brought it into our home. And those days on Mondays and Fridays, laundry is our priority. As soon as the animals are fed, we start working on laundry. So because it was a holiday weekend, I said to the kids, and mostly to my teenage daughter, I said, okay, what if we don’t do laundry on Friday because it’s the 4th of July and then we don’t want to do it on Saturday. We have other plans. What if we just do a load of towels so that we can all shower? And then on Monday we’ll just know that laundry is going to take us longer and it’s going to be a priority. Does that work for you?

Or would you rather do it on Saturday? We can work together. So she was like, let’s just face it. Let’s just do it on Monday. And I’m like, that’s fine. And another example is, so this weekend coming up, we have a family reunion and we have to make a bunch of food. So probably midweek, I’ll say, okay, here’s some ideas I had because I’ll need her help. We can make this or this or this, and we can do it either this day or we can fit it in on this day. What would work best for you? What would you like to do? So having teenagers on the homestead looks a lot like that. You know what I mean? Giving them looks like thinking ahead and giving them a lot of choices and a lot of room to have their own ideas. And this morning when we were weeding, I knew that it would go faster if she helped. So I just simply said, Hey, I need you to help us weed. It’ll take about 30, 45 minutes and then we’ll be done. So it looks a little more like working with an adult.

You’re just going to have a spirit of respect for their time and their interests and just treat them with a lot of respect. And you’re not going to be as demanding. And the other thing I’ll often do is I’ll say, okay, I’m going to go out in the garden. I’ll be there the rest of the afternoon. Here are some things that you may do this afternoon, you can choose from. You can choose one or two of them and get them knocked off while I’m out there, but I often use the word may. You may. So that they feel like it’s their idea and not like you have to do this or get this done before I come in.

Anna Sakawsky:

And I’m assuming because you’ve raised them from a young age doing the sense that they still interpret that as I may, it’s my choice, but they’re still making those choices. Thinking again about maybe my kids or people who have kids that might use that word and go, you may do that, and they go, okay, or I may not and I’m not going, yes.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

But because you are treating them with respect. And my teenagers also know that if they don’t meet me in the middle like that, and when I do suggest things, if they don’t meet me in the middle, then they lose that privilege. And I’ll say, okay, today you’re going to do X, Y, Z before you can do anything else. If they don’t manage their time, if they can’t manage their time with what needs to be done, then I’ll manage it for them. And I can see it in my, so my little boys are nine, 10, and 12, and I can see that they’re starting to request that same amount of respect. And here again, when you have younger children, they grow up faster because they see the way I treat their teenage siblings.

And so I’ll say, okay, you have all these dishes to put away, and yet I see you playing Legos. And so my 10-year-old came to me and he’s like, mom, I’m in the middle of building something. I can put the dishes away later. And so I’ll say, okay, I can meet you, I can compromise. And I’ll say, but I don’t want to have to tell you to come in and put dishes away. It is now your responsibility to remember that you still have to do this. So I can feel that my little boys are starting to request that same amount of respect. They’re not loving to be told, Hey, you got to come put your clean dishes away, things like that.

Anna Sakawsky:

But then the consequence if they’re not doing that is, okay, well then you’re going to get treated more like the children who need to be told what to do. And of course at that age, nobody wants to be managed or micromanaged if they can avoid it. So that tends to be motivation enough.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So there’s that stage between, okay, so the elementary age, which is the able but not willing, it tends to kind of morph. You know what I mean? So it kind of morphs into the more of a routine you have. So our routine morning chores, nobody questions. Those are part of our routine and we just do them. But it’s those little extra things like pulling weeds, things like that that tend to make children bristle. They didn’t see it coming. It came out of nowhere and I had my whole day planned and now I have to pull weeds. So it’s those chores that to them you’re pulling out of thin air and they didn’t see it coming that tend to make them bristles. So for my children, the nine, 10, and 12, because they kind of send me the message that they want to be treated with a little more respect, they want me to respect their time, they want to play legos. So I told them this morning, okay, the laundry’s all done, we’re going to have a snack, and in about an hour I’m going to call you to go pool weeds and then we’re going to pool weeds.

And I mean, they whined and complained a little bit, but they knew it was coming, so we didn’t have meltdowns.

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah, I do find that kids respond best to that too, kind of knowing what’s coming up, even if it’s like what’s for dinner? Having that plan, having them so that there’s no surprises

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Tends

Anna Sakawsky:

To work to keep a little bit more of a calm atmosphere in the home.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Yes.

Anna Sakawsky:

Okay. Let’s talk about older kids who maybe weren’t brought up this way. So folks that are maybe have kids in the able but not willing stage or maybe who are already into their teenage years and they are wanting to instill some of these values in them and have them be contributing members of the family household or the family economy. What tips do you have for these folks to bring these older kids on board if they’re not used to doing this?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So if your goal is to teach your children skills, I would simply start on the chore list where say your five-year-olds are and start giving them those types of chores and they’re going to gain skills really fast. They’re going to learn how to scramble eggs and a day later they’re going to be putting it all together on an egg sandwich and things like that. So you start small and you build on the skills. But the number one thing is if you have older children, I would say if you have teenagers, the best thing that you can do is make sure you’re building relationship. Because without relationship, nothing that you want for them matters to them. And we experienced this, we’re adoptive parents and we experienced it firsthand with one of our sons and his teachers. If they weren’t focused on building relationship, he didn’t even hear their requests. So relationship is most important, and the way to build relationship with children and with the family and on the homestead is creating many positive shared experiences as you can. That is what relationships are built on. So say this morning when we were weeding, I kept it positive for 10 minutes and it spiraled.

So the thing is, if it’s a positive shared experience, we want to recreate it and we want to do it again. So I work really hard at making our chores a positive shared experience, and I’m very aware of when the cow kicks the bucket in, there’s flies bothering us and mosquitoes on us when we’re milking in the field even I don’t want to repeat it.

So I’m very, very conscious of overriding of say the next morning when we go do chores to create a positive environment so that we want to repeat it. So with older children, if you can say, let’s make lasagna together, and that’s all that you’re going to focus on is we’re going to make lasagna together and it’s going to be a positive shared experience, and because it’s a positive shared experience, they’re going to be willing to recreate it with me. If you have teenagers that you haven’t been, you’re not just going to say, okay, you’re going to start doing chores, you’re going to work closely with them, and it’s going to be about building relationship. That’s going to be your primary thing because once you have relationship, you can speak into their lives.

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah, I love that. Okay, so we’ve talked a little bit about the intrinsic, I guess, rewards that come from doing tours and everything. What are your thoughts on other types of rewards allowance, even doing something? Do you have a chore chart? I know some kids even or gamifying things. My daughter, again, I am using her just because that’s who I have experience with. She likes to gamify everything. So it’s like, okay, if we set a timer or it’s like, who can do this the quickest? And so I try to incorporate a little bit of that, but I don’t want that to be all that it’s about. I’m trying to also teach her that the reward is just the job well done, and it’s not about, we were picking peas the other day and it wasn’t about how many I have, it’s just that we need to pick all the peas. So what are your thoughts on this? And do you incorporate any of these types of things with your kids or what are your thoughts on having other types of rewards?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So I have four sons, so everything turns into a competition, right? So we’re picking peas and the mosquitoes are eating us. We just got to get this done. But they’re saying, oh, my bucket’s got more the peas than your bucket. And I’m saying, well, his row had more peas because that row was healthier than this row. But when they shuck the peas, there’s this ongoing contest for years and years in our family of who has the pod with the most peas in.

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah, we played that yesterday too.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So we do gamify things that take a long time. Setting the timer is a great way to teach time management. I’ll allow that. I’ll even encourage it when I have a child that needs to develop time management skills as far as allowances, I tailor it towards, I don’t have any children that are super, super monetary motivated right now. So allowances don’t really, we don’t do allowances, but we do say our teenage children, when they have a job, we say, okay, your room and board say our 17-year-old son has a full-time job this summer, and we don’t charge him room and board, but we expect you to help out evenings and weekends where we need you. That’s how you pay for your room and board. And then the boys, there’s this place in Rochester, Minnesota that’s called bricks and mini figures. And in case nobody has caught on yet, my boys are obsessed with Legos and they have been for years and years and years. And I actually, when I ground them because of attitudes or something, I ground them from Legos, like, okay, I’m sorry, you cannot play Legos the rest of the day because you disobeyed me and you continued to play Legos when you were supposed to come see me. Things like that.

So they’ve been telling me about this place that’s about an hour away, and it’s all about Legos and mini figures and you can buy and sell and trade. And I told them at the end of the summer before school starts as a reward for helping me out all summer and having good attitudes. I would take them there and I would give them some money to spend, and they’re super motivated about that. So I just kind of take the temperature, what are they really into? What have I heard them talking about a lot? What are they asking me to do? And then I’ll kind of tie that into and make it more of a how far can they keep their focus? How long can they focus on this? So we do compensate them like that. Or if there’s a really big job, we’ll say a big unusual job, we’ll say, we paint our whiteboard fence and it’s not something that we have to do every year. And let’s say, okay, this week that’s going to be our focus and we’re going to do it, and at the end, I’m going to pay you this much money when it’s all done.

Anna Sakawsky:

So the things that kind of go above and beyond

The daily expected chores. Okay. Yeah, I like that. Okay, so, so everybody knows we’re going to get to questions. We’ve got a bunch of questions in the chat right now that we are saving. So we’re going to get there very soon, I promise. But I’ve got a couple more questions that I want to ask first. So one of them that I’m sure is on people’s minds as well, or that other people have struggled with and probably have as well, is how do you kind of balance just getting things done that need to be done and that need to be done by a certain timeline and to a certain standard with slowing down or allowing things to get chaotic and messy as they do with kids in order to teach them values? Is that always the top priority or on a homestead? Sometimes things just need to get done.

And I think, or just in life in general. And I think that, I know my husband and I have certainly been in the position before where we’re wanting to involve the kids, but it’s taking way longer than it needs to or it’s just we’re all getting frustrated and it’s like, fine, just step away and we’ll just do this. Right? Or I know my mom did that with me a lot growing up too. I wasn’t really allowed in the kitchen because it was just faster if she just did it. So how have you dealt with that when things just, you just got to get a job done and maybe the kids are slowing you down or creating more of a mess or My toddler was out with us the other day picking the peas, and as he’s doing it, he’s pulling them out of the ground or eating them all, which is fine. We want to also instill that love of great, he’s loving the garden fresh produce, but we also want to get a harvest to bring in and to preserve. So how do you manage that?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So the one thing when I talk about childhood chores and when I’m talking about toddlers, I will often tell moms, listen, do not wait to do all your work. Don’t make all of your chores have to be, I’m teaching them, don’t make all of your chores. You’re never going to get anything done.

Instead, look at your day and say, okay, these are the things that I’m going to do during nap time or before they get up because these are the things that I just want to get done. And then these are the things that I’m going to do while they’re awake because it doesn’t matter if they help me. So you’re just going to kind of divide your day like that. But your elementary age, they should have the self-discipline to help you stick with you until the job is done, or then entertain themselves while you do something that mow the yard or something that they can’t be right with you. They should have the ability to, and I’ve had some elementary age kids, and especially if there’s two in the same age group that couldn’t be trusted out of my site because they were just naughty, right? Going to the attic and digging through toys, things like that. And the minute I’d get on the lawnmower and I would put them on the trampoline, I’d say, go get yourself each a dozen books and you’re going to stay on the trampoline until I’m done mowing. So you have to know your children. But definitely there times when you say, okay, this is what you’re going to do while I get this knocked out.

But as often as possible, especially with the elementary age, you’re going to bring them in. And then the way you, let’s say picking Ps for example, if you have a 6-year-old, the job looks overwhelming. They can’t even see an end in sight because they have such little bit life experience and an hour is a lifetime to them. So you’re going to take your foot and you’re going to draw a line in the dirt and you’re going to say, okay, you pick until this line, and then you can go sit in the grass and start shelling them. So you’re going to give them those tiny little goals, but you’re always going to ask them to give a little more than they think they’re able to. They say they’re done, they’ve picked enough, and you’re just going to encourage them to pick six more feet or something like that. Okay.

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah. Alright. I like that. Okay, so before we get into questions, let’s just touch on a little bit about your background, your faith, and how you have brought that into your more modern homestead. So again, you and Elvin made the decision to leave behind the old order Mennonite culture that you both grew up in for a more modern but still faith-driven life. So you had to kind of make some decisions. I think it’s interesting because a lot of people that you hear that leave those types of communities, they leave them completely right? You hear these stories where they want nothing to do with it anymore and they move away completely. But you didn’t do that. You kind of looked at what you felt worked for you and what you could incorporate and the values that you could take from your upbringing and then incorporated that in a way that would work for your own family that you were raising. So what did that journey look like for you? How did your faith evolve during that transition? And in what ways does your faith continue to guide your family’s home setting journey today?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

That’s a very good question. So most people know that the older Mennonites, they are a very religious Christian group. So they believe in Jesus Christ, but they’re very religious. So a lot of rules like you have to dress a certain way, you have to drive a horse and buggy all of those things. So when we made the decision to leave, it was not because we wanted to drive a car or I wanted to cut my hair or all of those things. And most people think that we were chasing after the modern world, and that’s why we left because that’s the biggest reason people leave the old order Mennonites or the Amish is because it’s such a restrictive lifestyle and people leave because they want more modern conveniences. But for us, it simply was that we got introduced to the presence of the Lord and we for the first time in our lives had a personal relationship with Jesus and we needed more of that and less of religion.

And the more we learned to know who God is and how much he loves us, the less we valued the religion part of it. And the day came where we’re like, we don’t believe that you have to drive a horse and buggy to be saved. So then why are we driving a horse and buggy? And so when we sold the horse and buggy and use that cash to buy a minivan, it weren’t chasing after the modern world. We were chasing after more of Jesus. And I think that through searching for healing and knowing that healing from legalism can only happen through the word of God and getting to know God better, I really think that’s when God started. Instead of leaving and having bitterness for all of the injuries and the religious oppression and all of that, instead of that bitterness just growing, God kind of opened our eyes to all the beauty that was in that lifestyle and all the beauty in the way we were raised and all the skills and the knowledge and God kind of gave us a deep appreciation for the way we were raised, and yet we’re comfortable not being in exactly the same lifestyle.

Anna Sakawsky:

Well, it’s a bold decision and it’s clearly worked very well for your family and is obviously still an important part of your daily life and the values that you have instilled in your children and everything. But of course, just like not everybody has a homestead, not everybody practices the same faith, and we have a lot of folks that are maybe not aligned with any particular faith or maybe even coming at this from more of a secular point of view. How important do you think that faith is when it comes to raising children with grit, discipline, strong moral values, et cetera? Do you think it can be done without that faith element? How might this look for someone who is not aligned with a particular faith or a particular religion and therefore doesn’t have those particular guidelines to help them? How can they still bring these values into their life?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So what looks like for us, for me, for Alvin and I and our children, our primary goal is for them to know God the way that we know him and even deeper and better. It depends on what do you want to influence your children to become or who do you want to influence your children to follow? And you can only influence your children if you have built relationship with them. So I think it all ties together because we use the homestead to build relationship and integrity, and you’re going to use that regardless where you go in life, you’re going to use character sets, people apart, no matter what field you go into, no matter what religion you go into, character sets people apart. That integrity, that work ethic, the self-discipline, you can spot them. So if your goal is character and integrity because you want successful children, you want them to do well and jobs and things like that, you’re still going to use the same principles because that’s how you’re going to build relationship, and that’s how you’re going to influence them to become the best version of themselves. And what looks for us is we build relationships so that we can touch their hearts in a way that influences them to follow Jesus in the same way. Somebody that might not believe in Jesus is still going to build relationship so that they can touch their children’s hearts and the next generation because they have goals for their children too. Does that make sense?

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I really love that and I love that that’s your

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Relationship with your children. I cannot stress enough how quality shared time, shared experiences, positive experiences, laughing together, working together, crying together, that is where relationships are built.

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think you’re right. My husband and I talk about this a lot and we talk about that it is hard, right? It’s hard some days and it does slow you down and it’s messy and it’s frustrating sometimes. But we always have this long goal in mind of who they will be as adults and how that will be when we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor and having strong relationships where our children want to come back and be around us and have everything they need to be functioning, independent, capable human beings in the world. And I think you’re right. I think that

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Could be a compliment to their communities

Anna Sakawsky:

Instead

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Of a drain on society. They’re the leaders. That’s what we want for them is to be strong, capable leaders. And I know when it’s not happened in a while, but when our older children were younger, Alvin and I would look at say something, we’d see a scenario play out, and in adults or older children, we’d be like, oh, that’s what that looks like in an adult. You know what I mean? Or we’d see something on the news or something, and we kind of do it when the boys, when we watch sports and there’s unsportsmanlike conduct and all of that, we’ll tell them that’s what that looks like when it’s not dealt with. This is why we make you sit out when you cheat on at eight years old. So that being able to have this worldview and being able to see things for what they are and bring it home and be like, okay, that’s what that looks like if I don’t deal with that.

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah, that’s so important. And I think just that constant consistency and communication so that they’re fully

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Equipped. If you’re exhausted, if you feel like, okay, this sounds exhausting, then you’re doing it right. If you fall into bed exhausted. Perfect,

Anna Sakawsky:

Perfect. Yeah, it’s like that whole adage of if your kids don’t hate you a few times, then

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Yeah,

Anna Sakawsky:

That’s just part of parenting. Absolutely. Okay, so just before we get into all the questions now, what do you hope your, and we’ve talked a lot about this, but if you could kind of sum it up, what do you hope your children will carry with them from their childhoods on the homestead, even if they choose not to homestead themselves? If you could distill it down to a few key values that they will take with them as adults, what would that be?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

I would hope that my children would all comprehend how important it is to build relationship with their children and their spouses. And that would be my main goal for them is that relationship would always be their focus and being together and spending positive shared experiences. Because when you have relationship, you have everything. When you have relationship with your children and your siblings and your parents, that’s really the dream.

Anna Sakawsky:

So it’s kind of carrying this on into the next generation then. Yes. So you wrote in your latest article for us too that these, I’ve written down the quote, soul quota. It says These days with pastures full of animals, a large garden full of crops, and more adults and young adults than little ones gathered around our family dinner table. It feels like Elvin and I are running full speed alongside the snowball we’ve built doing our best to keep up. We watch it’s direction, closely offering a word here, a nudge there, and save our breath for the next sprint. As we link hands behind it, our eyes meet and we smile with contentment. We know the next sprint forward might be the one that leaves us behind. We’re okay with that. Our linked hands will prevent backward movement. No matter if future generations let go of the milk cows, the garden, or any of our original goals, we’re confident this snowball is headed in the right direction, which I love. I think that was beautiful. What is your vision for yourself and for Alvin? Do you see yourself continuing to homestead once the kids are gone? Are you going to scale back now that you have built, raised up these functioning very capable young adults? How do you foresee handling the homestead when the kids leave home?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So we have a pretty large age span with our children. And for a long time for the last couple of years, I said, oh, dairy sheep are my homestead plan. I plan to get a dairy sheep. That’s my retirement plan, and then I’ll have enough milk for just Elvin and I and they’ll be fine. But I didn’t take into consideration that grandchildren are going to happen before we are ever empty nesters.

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So our grandson is already drinking a couple gallons. They stop by for milk. And so I’m not sure what it looks like, and I’m not sure if I don’t know or if I’m afraid to say it because I want it so much.

But ideally, I kind of think that the next generation would settle close by and that the grandchildren would take the place of the children. And if I continue to need a milk cow because the grandchildren are drinking that much milk, then I would hope they would live close enough where I can bring them in and they can help do chores. And we’re already, so say the pigs, we already raise enough pigs so that we can say, Hey, if you do chores for us while we’re gone this weekend, we will save one hog for you. Or if you show up and help butcher these chickens, you can fill your freezer with chicken. So I feel like we’re already starting to kind of build into the next generation, but I do understand they probably all need to take a little journey away from it to value it again.

But I don’t really know. I can’t imagine living anywhere else, but I’ve been noticing there’s a couple farms in the area where the owners are elderly now, and you can tell when you drive by, things aren’t as kept up. They don’t get off their mower to move things, they just mow around them. And so I’m really hoping and praying that the Lord gives us wisdom when it’s time to move on and let the next generation take over. But I’m not there yet. I’m still in the very depth of a hundred quarts of green beans, three milk trenches. Yeah, we’re very much in the trenches, but I don’t know what it’ll look like when my little workforce all wants to get jobs.

Anna Sakawsky:

Right. Yeah. Okay. Well, we’re very excited to see how that journey unfolds for you. We are going to move on to some questions. Now. We’ve got a lot sitting here in the chat, so I know that somebody did just comment and ask, what was the name of your book again? So let’s just quickly touch on that and we’ll go to some questions. So your upcoming book is titled The Heart of the Homestead. So can you just give us maybe a sneak peek of what readers can expect from that? And of course, tell everybody where they can go and pre-order the book if they like. And I think our team maybe has a link, a direct link, they’ll pop in the chat as well. I send

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

The link, but if you go to ruth ann zim.com and click on the title of the book, which is of the homestead, you should be able to find it, but it’s on Amazon, on Barnes and Noble Christian book.com. Yeah, you can pre-order it on anywhere books are sold. And so when my publisher approached me and they said, okay, this is the kind of book we want, I was really kind of disappointed because I don’t like to write practical things, but it turned out that I was able to put a lot of heart and feeling into each chapter. So even though the book is full of this is how we feed our milk cows, this is how we milk them, it also has a lot of heart in it, and it has stories from my childhood or stories from here on the homestead. And in every chapter, you’re going to find inspiration to make your family and your loved ones a priority over any homestead ideas.

Anna Sakawsky:

Right. Yeah, I really like that. And I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek of your book when you’re writing the article, and I found it very refreshing because you do have some practical skills and tips and recipes and things like that in there, but it is, I found that it was more about the deeper why, the intention behind why you’re doing what you’re doing. And I think we could all use a little bit of that motivation when we’re living this lifestyle. Sometimes it can literally and figuratively be easy to get lost in the weeds and just feel like you

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Have to, why are we doing this? Right? Yeah. You have to have those boundaries, and you have to have a long-term goal because otherwise, the weeds that are growing up as tall as my corn, they consume me and they take my joy or the milk cow that gets sick. That can’t be my priority. And so I have to be able to say, listen, my children are happy, my children are healthy. It’s a good day. It’s a good day.

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. Okay, let’s get to some questions. So okay, we’ll just go, going to go in chronological order here. So we had Laurie who had asked, when the kids have, I’ll pop it up on the screen. When the kids have good attitudes, do they get less chores? So again, this kind of goes back to rewards, that sort of thing. Is there any type of reward for an exceptional job, or is there any way for your kids to get less chores if they put in more effort or

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

No? Well, I’ll sometimes say, listen, you’ve done such a good job. I’ll finish up here. For example, I am always the one that takes care of the milk just because I’m a little OCD about getting clean milk to the house. So I’m always the one that takes care of the milk, and they’re all supposed to come check in with me before they go to the house and say, mom, is there anything you need? Because they sometimes get done before me. And so sometimes they’ll come and we usually have some milk for the pigs, and they’ll come and they’ll check in with me before their chores are really done. And I’ll say, Hey, you did a great job the last three mornings. You’ve done a great job. I’ll finish up for you and you can go take a shower or do something like that. So I just kind of try to sprinkle those little positive moments in there.

Yeah. So that’s one of my favorite things to do. I was thinking there was something else. Oh, I know what it is. When I notice that somebody’s done an exceptional job, I’ll make a point of mentioning it at the family dinner table or something like that. Kind of let the whole family in, let the whole family be impressed. So that’s probably one of my favorite ways to say, listen, the boys, they’ve milked the cow all by themselves. They got three gallons. There was not a drop left in her when they were done, they did an exceptional job. Or say he’s been doing the meat chickens all by himself all week. There’s not been one thing. He’s moved the tractor everything and mentioned it at family dinner and let them be proud.

Anna Sakawsky:

Right. Yeah, that’s really nice. I think everybody responds well to that sort of praise, right?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Yes.

Anna Sakawsky:

Okay. Vivica had just asked, just because we were on the topic of your book, and you had mentioned your chore ebook, so interested in ordering your book Chore Info. I don’t do Instagram, et cetera now. So can you just reiterate for people maybe how they can get that?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Okay, so the Childhood Chores ebook is a pre-order gift for anybody that pre-orders the book. It starts tomorrow. So if she goes to christian book.com starting tomorrow, will the childhood, and if she pre-orders the heart of the homestead, the Childhood Chores ebook will be emailed to her as a gift.

Anna Sakawsky:

So christian book.com. We also had here that we put up on the screen ruth zim.com/the heart of the homestead. So you can go there to pre-order as

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Well, and you’ll get that.

Anna Sakawsky:

Sure.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

The Christian book link will be on my website, so that goes live tomorrow.

Anna Sakawsky:

Okay, perfect. Alright. Okay. So let’s see here. Okay, here’s a good one. How do you suggest we handle it when the attitude caused by the child literally being unable to mentally handle doing the activity right then? Okay, so my oldest has very variable energy levels because of medication dietary issues. So there are times when he’s physically unable to do anything other than take a 60 to 90 minute nap. And so this kind of just poses the bigger question is there are children with all sorts of different abilities and different issues they might be working through. How would you suggest that people adapt chores and that sort of thing for kids like that?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

It’s a good question, especially when you’re in the stage where faint incompetence seems to be their whole personality. I think it would be difficult. It would take a lot of intention to decipher what is low energy levels and what is just simply, I don’t want to do this, but I think you’ll have to know your child and you’re going to have to make mistakes so that you learn and find a way to communicate with them and adjust your expectations. Because obviously with medications and dietary issues, you’re going to have challenges that other children don’t have. And so we have two adopted sons and I’m from a very high energy family, and so I have to often scale back expectations because I have one son that isn’t high energy and I have to make sure that before we go out to do chores, he has a glass of milk because he wakes up moving slowly and with low blood sugar and he’ll end up in tears and simply not able to focus if I don’t make sure that he has enough time to wake up and drink his milk before we go do chores where I’m more the type, I hit the ground running and I can be out there milking the cow 10 minutes after I woke up and it doesn’t bother me.

So allowing for each family, each member’s differences is a great skill and it’s a great focus for a mom to have so that we aren’t just focused on getting things done and we focus on what does this child need right now? How can I adjust my expectations for this child without and still continue to build character and relationship,

Anna Sakawsky:

Right? And maybe knowing the difference between feign incompetence and genuinely this is something that is a struggle for this child, or maybe they have some sort of sensory issues or diagnoses or whatever that makes it difficult for them to keep up to the level that you might expect from some of the other kids. So just really I think of it, if you are homeschooling or running a classroom even, you’re adapting for each child and kind of meeting them where they’re at.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

And the first thing I would do is select, well, let’s change the scenario a little bit. Let’s say, well, how about I go with you? How about I get you started? And then you get to kind of lighten, start talking about something and you’ll be able to tell in no time at all. If it was just a little bit of an attitude or if you can’t snap them out of it, then it’s a real issue.

Anna Sakawsky:

Okay, so here’s another one. How do you handle a pouting or stubborn child? So this is more like intentionally they shut down when they don’t want to do what you tell them, pretend they’re shy or start pouting or burst into tears.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So the number one thing to remember, and I don’t know the age of this child is children do not shift gears in their head. So let’s say for example, my children are playing Legos and I out of the blue say, Hey, we need to go pull weeds. I’m going to be met head on. They’re going to pout, they’re going to be doing the eye roll and they’re going to complain because they really can’t shift gears real well. But another example, an idea is to tell them, Hey, I need you all to come here. And then you’ve removed them and then when they’re standing in front of you and you’re talking to them, they’re already left their Legos behind and that helps them shift gears. So for my boys, I will almost always tell them, come here and look at me. You know what I mean?

So we are making eye contact and then I’ll say, okay, here’s what we’re going to do. And if they have a habit of pouting or throwing a fit, I’ll say, and if it’s done with a good attitude, it’s going to be short and you can go back to your Legos. If there’s pouting and you’re throwing fits, then this is what we’re going to do after that. And then I have more chores and we’re just going to keep going until you adjust your attitude. Now, obviously with a very young child, a 4-year-old not going to expect them to grasp that quite as quickly and you’re going to help them shift gears a lot gentler, and you’re still going to say, Hey, can you come here for a minute? And then you’re going to say, mommy needs you to go take these clothed to the hamper. And that’s a very simple job, but oftentimes with young children when they’re throwing fits, it’s simply they don’t have a goal and you’re going to have to make that goal for them or they can’t switch gears.

So I kind of liken it to this, when you are learning a new skill, let’s say you’re learning to sow and you’re reading your instructions and then you’re doing what you need to do and you’re reading your instructions and one of your children comes and starts bugging you for something, doesn’t it make you feel like your head’s going to explode? Okay. So that’s what it’s like for young children is they’re so busy forming connections in their brain on that, and when you break their focus, that’s what it feels like to them. It makes me feel like I’m going to melt down if a child needs my attention when I was really focused on making cheese and I was reading the instructions. So understanding where their brain development is is going to help you not see it as disobedience as much as they don’t have the skill to shift gears,

Anna Sakawsky:

Right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And again, I think it comes back to meeting your children where they’re at and what works for ’em. I know my mom always said with me growing up, I was one that I did not, and I still don’t do well with interruptions and very quick transitions. I need a lot of transition time in between. So she would always do a bit of a countdown. So in five minutes, and this is what I try to do with my kids now is, okay, start cleaning up because in five minutes, 10 minutes, we’re going to head out to the garden or we’re going to start getting dinner going or whatnot. Yeah, I totally agree.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

The other thing is sometimes just giving them, and I’ll give my children a little bit of a verbal warning, okay, in five minutes we’re going to go pull weeds and you have to prepare to not pout because if you pout, then remember it is just simple. Then we’re also going to weed the corn, so letting them, giving them the words they need so they can think through, because oftentimes pouting is kind of a reaction, but we want them to learn to control their reactions, and so giving them that warning that, okay, we’re going to go pull weeds and you’re going to practice not pouting.

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah, yeah, I like that. And that actually being the thing that you’re working on, right? Yes. Rather than we’re weeding the garden. Well, actually what this is about is we’re going to practice the not coding. And again, I’m doing that a lot with my daughter this summer. I’m like, it’s not even about what we’re doing. What we’re practicing is staying focused and seeing the job through to the end.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Right? Yes.

Anna Sakawsky:

Okay. I just want to go back to, because we had talked about children have maybe dietary issues, sensory disorders, that sort of thing. We had another question come up about how do you handle developing focus with A DHD and executive dysfunction issues. So I don’t know if you have dealt with this specifically, but I can imagine that there are lots of parents that are in these kinds of situations where again, I am one of them where that tends to be the bigger issue, the staying focused, the not getting distracted. What advice do you have for parents that are dealing specifically with that sort of thing?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

So number one, I do think that I would have a couple children, and I don’t know that this compares, I would have a couple children that would be on medication if we didn’t watch what they eat.

So there’s times when my children eat something with food dye and it’s this huge shift in personality where their chores are just done terribly. They have zero focus, they jump from one subject to the next, and they interrupt me when I’m giving them instructions. And so what I found helpful in those days is number one, I adjust my expectations, and number two, I work with them side by side because my focus can leak over. It is the same with emotional regulation. If you have a child that’s emotionally dysregulated, just bringing them really close can often help them regulate. And it’s the same with focus having, so for example, if we’re picking peas and a child is lollygagging and speaking something else and standing there, I’ll often say I’m listening to you, but I will respond once you start picking. But yeah, it’s exhausting. It’s exhausting to keep to use my focus to help them focus. But I think with a child that has an executive dysfunction issue, I think you just adjust your expectation and all that you’re looking for is growth with skills. Doesn’t matter where they start, it doesn’t matter if they’re not able to execute the same job that their peers are. All you’re looking for as a mother is that every month you see some development of skills and a little bit of development of focus. It doesn’t matter if he’s not doing the same thing his peers are, as long as he’s growing.

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah, love that. And I love that you speak to the fact that it is exhausting. I think sometimes we think it shouldn’t be this hard, but it is. That’s part of it. And comes with that kind of staying consistent and remembering the greater why behind why you’re doing what you’re doing. Because I know from personal experience that that’s when it comes up for us that we’re like, oh, this would be so much easier if we just do it ourself or without all the chattering we were saying there. And I’m like, let’s just enjoy the silence and it’s good for our mental health. But sometimes that can be tough with certain children. Okay. Oh, hold on. Okay, so Hannah asked in a big family, how do you help the older children not have a more parental role with their younger siblings? So this is something that’s also come up for us with our daughter and our toddler where my husband and I sometimes have disagreements.

He’s very much like your job, if you’re not helping us, your job is to take care of your brother. And I agree to a certain extent, but I’m always careful with him about the wording too, because I grew up as the eldest and it was always very much put on me that I had to be the responsible one. I had to almost take on the parental role, and I had a little bit of resentment for that. So how do you strike that balance where the older children aren’t necessarily feeling like you’re putting the parenting role on them, but that is their natural role as the older siblings?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

This is a very interesting topic, and it’s one that I love. And so when our older daughters were say 16, so we had our four oldest fairly close together, so there wasn’t a whole lot of, so I may have said to my five-year-old like, Hey, he’s all dressed. You all go outside. I’ll be outside in five minutes. But I really, really love being a mom. So I was always, and maybe because I was the oldest of my three younger siblings, I was always very conscious of not making it sound like, okay, here was my thought process. If something happens when that older child is in charge, I don’t want them to feel guilty for the rest of their life because they were in charge.

So that was always my thought process, and I was very careful with the wording and I was always like, I’ll be right there. I didn’t make it seem like it was their sole responsibility. They were only helping me fill in for a little bit. And then when our older daughters were teenagers, we adopted two boys and had a surprise baby. And so it would’ve been very, very easy to delegate a lot of the baby care and the toddler care to them because they were nurturing and they were willing because they are 15 and 16 and they loved these babies. But I was also very conscious of that, especially with our adopted sons, that they need to know that I am their mother. I was very conscious of attachment disorders, so I had very firm boundaries only I changed the diaper only I gave the baths only I gave the bottles. Those were all my jobs. When I rock them to sleep, I always put them down for a nap. Those were my jobs as the mother. I delegated the cooking and the laundry and more things like that,

Anna Sakawsky:

Like household type chores.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Household chores got delegated. I was the sole caregiver because what I was looking for with my adopted sons was that they prefer me over anybody else because I knew that that would be a sign of a healthy attachment to one caregiver. And then after they prefer me over anybody else, then I don’t care if you feed them their bottle. But by the time they preferred me over anybody else, and it just seemed right to then nurture that attachment. And so I’m more like you’ll hear me say to my older children when they try to parent the younger ones, I’m the mother here, I’m the mother, I’ve got this because I also want to really protect their relationship with each other. But so let’s say with when I have to be gone for a couple hours, I’ll be very stern with the boys and say, Hadassa is in charge. She knows what needs to happen, but you’ll all answer to me when I get home for how you behave. So I am very much the mother, and I don’t want for my children to take on a parental role for any of those types of things because like I said earlier, if something were to go wrong or I don’t want them to carry the guilt or the burden of that for the rest of their lives, that’s my role. If something goes wrong, I am created to be able to handle if there’s an accident or something like that, not a child.

Anna Sakawsky:

Right. Yeah, that’s a great outlook. So Paula asks, we adopted our boys at age seven, eight, and nine. So they’re teens now and still have the victim mentality and sense of entitlement. They were taught in foster care, their trauma was very real, but it has become an excuse for all disobedience and for ignoring our instructions. I know this is very different from your family, but wondering if you have any feedback. So as somebody with adopted children, what’s your guess here?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

The victim mentality of foster children and adopted children is very, it’s a very real thing. Our boys were very young when they came into our home and they don’t even remember any of it, any of foster care. And they struggle with a victim mentality. And so the only worded advice that I have is lots of prayer and teaching them prayers for when I feel this way, but I don’t really have any real concrete advice because my adopted sons aren’t even teenagers yet. And so all I have to say to Paula is, I will remember to pray for you and pray for your boys, and trust that with frontal lobe development, there’s going to be a lot of changes.

Anna Sakawsky:

And probably just going back to the same things we’ve been talking about, this whole episode was just staying consistent. And we haven’t necessarily used this terminology or I haven’t heard you say this specifically, but I’ve heard you speak a lot about just modeling behavior too. And if those are expectations that I’m doing this, I think that sometimes can be a disconnect too, where parents, it’s like, do as I say, not as I do, kind of thing like that. Just having that healthy role model relationship with your children

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Where you get to influence them. And then I would do whatever I absolutely can to keep the relationship open, and it’s not going to look anything like your peers or their peers who aren’t adopted or haven’t had the trauma. And I think being confident as a parent that I may have to have different expectations for my children, but this is what it looks like for me to keep this relationship

Anna Sakawsky:

Flowing. For sure. Okay, so here’s another one. Now it just shows that people are all over the place with their family sizes and the type of children they’re dealing with. So this is, Esther says, I have the challenge of having only one child or an only child. Would you do anything differently if you only had one?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Oh, this is something I can’t even comprehend. I can’t put myself in these shoes because I’m from a family of nine Alvin’s from a family of 13. But I have know one family who had an only child, and she became an honorary Zimmerman because her parents wanted her to experience siblings. And so she spent a lot of time here at our home. And so that’s the only experience I have is that they brought her here a lot to experience family life and get thrown in with chores and the babies and all of that. And I do think things would look a lot different if we only had one child and it would be more of a, we’re a team, we work together instead. It’s kind of mom’s in charge and the boys have the kids kind of have their own little pack. And I think that dynamic would be different if there was an only child.

Anna Sakawsky:

Yeah, I almost imagine it would be almost a little bit more like an apprentice that you’re just raising them up alongside you, but still with all of those same implementations as they go.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Yes. And relationship. Yeah.

Anna Sakawsky:

Okay. Debbie says, I have a terrible time keeping a schedule myself. I would love to hear how you fit in any kind of school bookwork that needs to be done in the midst of all of the household and homestead chores. And I think this just speaks to a bigger issue of a lot of us as adults, we struggle with these things, and then we’re trying to teach our kids how to manage their time and how to stay focused and how to see the job through, and we want to model that, but maybe we struggle with some of that as well. So any advice there for those of us who are,

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

I myself do not like a schedule or anything like that. I’m terrible at keeping a schedule. I am good at knowing what my priorities are.

So that’s kind of what it looks like for me, is more just understanding what my priorities are. And I was thinking this morning, there’s all these weeds to pull. Things are growing like crazy. And I was thinking to myself, I know there’s emails I need to answer. I know there’s all of this bookwork that needs to be done, but I told myself, you know what? I’m a mother and a homesteader first and then an entrepreneur second. So knowing what your priorities are and telling yourself all the time, wait, nope. This is what I am first. And then instead of saying, oh, I should be doing this and I should be doing that, and this needs to be done, just prioritizing. I’m a mother first. And so I meet those needs first.

Anna Sakawsky:

So to piggyback on that, I’m going to pop this question up on the screen, but there’s a couple that kind of follow in the same vein. So Susie had asked a question I have is how does mom keep up her energy to do all the things? And Kimberly had also asked, how do you get everything done and do self-care to be able to write, do YouTube and family, all that sort of thing. So this comes down to more like how do you manage your own energy? Because as you said, some days this is just exhausting and you need to protect that as well. Where does that fit in the list of priorities for you?

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Well, I’ve been told that I’m very high energy, and I think it’s a genetic thing.

I don’t think it’s anything I do. I think it’s just really a genetic thing. My mom is high energy, but I do get, okay, so June, July and August are exhausting to me because the days are so long. The sun comes up at four 30 and doesn’t set till 10:00 PM and about every five days I’m totally like, I need to sleep. I cannot keep this up any longer. So I think the number one thing is making sure I get enough of sleep and your diet helps, of course. But yeah, every day I have three priorities, emotional needs of the family, nutritional needs of the family, and then housework. Those are my three priorities. And I just stack though everything that needs to be done fits under one of those priorities. And then of course, number four, priority would be my YouTube and all of that that needs to be done. And so every time a need comes up, if an emotional need comes up in the family that takes priority, that moves to the top, weeding the garden that falls under nutritional needs of the family, and as long as all the emotional needs are met, then I’m free to work on the homestead because that’s nutritional needs.

And then housekeeping. As long as I’m able to meet the emotional needs and the nutritional needs of my family with the shape that my house is in, then it’s okay. This morning I spend some time getting the house in shape because it was getting to the point where it made me cranky. And when I’m cranky, then I cannot need the emotional needs, meet the emotional needs of the family when I’m cranky. So then housework has to be priority for a little bit,

Anna Sakawsky:

Right? Yeah. So just kind of reprioritizing based on the day, based on how everything’s going. It almost reminds me of that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. We have to meet certain ones first in order to be able to meet the next ones and so on and so forth.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Yeah.

Anna Sakawsky:

Well, that is fantastic. Thank you so much. You’ve shared so many pearls of wisdom, I think, on this conversation, and a lot that I know that I am taking to heart or have even taken to heart already since reading your article and reading snippets of your upcoming book. So I do encourage anybody again, who has not yet subscribed to Homestead Living Magazine, go ahead and do so now. I did see somebody in the comments I think earlier asking about if they subscribe now, will they still catch it in time to get to the next issue? Yes, you will. I think cutoff is tomorrow or the next day. So there should be a link below the video here. And again, make sure to go and pre-order Ruth Ann’s book, the Heart of the Homestead. And so we will have a replay coming out, and we’ll have all of the links to all of these things in the email as well.

So keep an eye on your inbox. So thank you so much, Ruthanne, for being with us here today, and we hope to see you back again on another episode of The Coop. And Ruthanne will be contributing a little bit more regularly as well for Homestead Living. So feel free to, if there’s ever anything that you would like her to cover or any of our writers, really feel free to share that with us as well, so that we’re delivering you valuable content going forward. But I’m so excited for her article coming out in the August issue. It really touches on everything that we covered today. So thank you so much again, Ruthann, for being here with us today, and to everybody else as well. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to be with us. And we will be back here again next month. Next month. We’re going to have our co-founder, Melissa K. Norris, on our next episode of the Coop. And we’re going to be talking all about food preservation, which of course is a very timely topic at this time of year. So I’ll let you, Ruthanne, get back to all of your chores and everything you’ve got going on in the homestead, and we will talk to you soon.

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Anna Sakawsky:

Alright, bye for

RuthAnn Zimmerman:

Now. Bye.