Chaos into Order

4 small children and one bathroom sink. You can imagine the chaos that occurs when I tell the kids to go brush their teeth.  We have started to implement something we learned from Kurt Gebhards.  It's simple but goes a long way in our everyday lives. Youngest to oldest.  It is our instinct to try to figure out who got there first or who deserves to go first, however, there is a great biblical principal we can teach to our kids in this. Older kids must see to it that their younger siblings (or friends or cousins) are cared for first before themselves. We should always put others first, especially when others may take longer than we do or need help.  The younger kids will see the example set by the older kids and do the same with other younger children they come in contact with.  It has been refreshing and peaceful to see Kalena and Sara work to see that Katie and Andrew get to go first and get the help they need, whether it's getting sox from the drawer, getting up into the car, or dishing out the first pancakes. It works well that even though Andrew will get to "go first" for the majority of his young life, at some point when he is older, we can switch to "Ladies first" :)