Dear Aunt Noor,

I am a 32 years old mother and I have five kids (3, 6, 8, 10, 13). My problem is with my kids. I can say that our life in general is chaos because of their actions. For instance, they sleep whenever they want and also wake up whenever they want. Everyone eats when he feels he is hungry and it has been a long time since we sat together for a meal. They spend most of their time playing games on the computer or watching TV. You would not believe it if I told you that we have changed our entire furniture more than 4 times in the past 7 years because they break things while running around the house. My question is: I want practical ideas and solutions to help me end this crazy situation. Thank you in advance Aunt Noor.

Um Mustafa,

Dear Um Mustafa,

Thanks you for your question. I begin my answer blaming you because you are the main reason for your kids being like that. You are the mother or in other words, you are the one who should be responsible for teaching your kids all the good things. Anyways, let’s go through some ideas which I hope could reduce and end your situation.

First, your kids should find the good model they can learn good things from such as caring about their things, time, household items and so on. Your kids can’t copy good things from you and their dad if both of you, as you said, spend most of the time outside the home. Therefore, the kids are just raising themselves up, besides what they learn from TV.

Also, tell them stories, help them in doing their homework or share them a fun activity.

Second, you can start a program for your kids where everyone is responsible of cleaning his/her bedroom when waking up in the morning but don’t forget to teach them that. Also, tell them that if anyone of them breaks anything, then you would cut it out of his school money  and they will lose TV time as well.

I think using these steps would help you a lot to solve your problem.

To ask Aunt Noor for her Advice , email her at noor@yemenpost.net