Building a Home

One family decided that a great family project would be to build themselves
a much needed home. Here are a few photos of the process.

Son learns from watching father
This was an unexpected father-son project, but I feel it is worth telling anyway. Sometimes the unexpected provides for the greatest learning-teaching opportunity. I was working on my bicycle preparing it for my first century ride when my son, Ronnie showed up and began asking in his 2 year old broken sentences, "What dat?" I began answering, "Wrench, screwdriver,etc." and after every identification, Ronnie was sure to repeat the words, as if to ensure it was locked in his memory computer. After finishing the adjustments on the bike, with Ronnie sitting right next me the entire time, we went about our day to do whatever it was we were doing. A few days later my wife Teri asked me if I ever turned by bike upside down and spun the wheels? I told her I had and why I did it. She then told me that my son, while at Nana's house, turned his tricycle over and began to spin the front wheel, " Daddy do it,” were his only words. Now, every time I am doing something, whether cooking, fixing or particularly working on my bike, Ronnie is sure to be at my side asking questions, wanting to know everything about the task at hand.

Wish More: I was well pleased as I am able to witness my son's comprehension by what my wife tells me. She is able to see all he does since she is a stay-at-home-mom, and does not have to hear the great stories from a day-care provider. Our family witnesses first hand the value of a close-knit family and the meaning of quality time.

Learning to install a mailbox
For example, when John was 12, I gave him three mailbox projects.

The first was very simple and involved removing the old mailbox from the post and cutting off the post (using a handsaw horizontally can be a challenge). He had to determine the correct height to cut it off in order for the new one to attach properly. He then had to drill two holes to mount the new mailbox assembly to the old post. I sat on the driveway doing some of my reading work and answered the few questions he had.

The second mailbox was across the street at John’s older brother’s house and was more difficult in that the entire post had to be removed. It was cemented in and involved a lot of digging and effort to get a proper hole to begin with. Then he was to figure out the depth of the hole and placement so that the mailbox would be the correct height and placement for postal codes. This time he had to work with cement and level the post (new technical challenge). Installing the box on top of the post was identical to what he had done on the first project.

The third mailbox was yet more difficult as it involved a different type of box and post. This was to bless a neighbor up the street who had cancer and was unable to do it himself. John first removed the post and dug the hole to make sure it would result in a mail box that was per postal regulations. (I should have had him call the USPS, but they were closed. So he measured other boxes on the street to determine what would be acceptable.) Once the hole was correctly dug, (I double-checked his positioning) he put the post in and the cement. The last step was fastening the box to the post. Again, I double-checked him and that was it.

Learning to wire a house

I needed to add a few outlets to our basement. This was John’s first introduction to wiring so all I had him do was run the cable. That involved drilling holes in joists and stapling the wire to the floor joists. The wire was #10 - 3 and therefore very difficult to work with. I would have had him help me wire the outlets but he was gone when I had time to wire them. He did watch me in the feeder panel and that is all I had him do for this introduction.

Webmaster skills
Joseph, at the age of fourteen, was working hard on a number of computer skills. He was learning Photoshop, Delphi, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, PHP, Visual Basic, and C#. He designed the original look for Preparing Sons, and then he adopted Christopher’s Titus2 general appearance for a more consistent look between “sister” sites.

Nathan our oldest is responsible for the server and providing Joseph the code for each of the old boards. Joseph, then, was responsible to configure the hundreds of settings and give it a “look” that was acceptable and boards that were usable.

Joseph, now near 16, has become very advanced in programming skills! Working on it at a young age paid off.

Learning to plant a tree

By: Mark

I had Zachary, age 6, dig a hole for the new cherry tree we were going to plant. I helped him dig the sod out of the way, and then explained how deep I needed the hole to be. I told him to keep digging until he had the proper depth and diameter of hole. He had to measure the depth.

That night we planted the tree. I explained how to plant the tree, using soil from our garden (not that hard, sticky clay he dug out) to fill around the root ball. We then mulched around the tree, wrapped the trunk and built a fence around it to keep the rabbits away.

I wanted to teach Zachary several things: first the obvious, how to plant a tree. I also wanted to teach him to follow simple instructions. I wanted to teach him perseverence. The clay soil was sticky and difficult to dig, but he did what he was told, and he did stick with it. I had to encourage
him keep at it before we started, explaining how important it was that he finish and have the hole ready when Daddy came home so we could plant the tree.

He did a great job, even though it was simple. In fact, his mother told him to stop, because she thought it was too deep (it wasn't).

Zachary also learned how to work with me, staying near when I was working, and learning from me as we built the fence. He learned to use a shovel, a wire cutter and he hammered in some stakes. He has used the hammer before.

This seemed to be an age appropriate task. He can handle a child-sized shovel. Digging ditches is something we all have to do at some point in our lives, it can be hard and tedious, we may want to give up--it is not glorious work. But the fruit of our labors will be sweet-sweet cherries in this case!