We’ve always referred to our little family as The Morgan Team. Maybe it’s my husband’s love for sports or being on a team that go that started; whatever it was, I love the sentiment behind it. We are a team, and things go better when we work that way. We’re a team wherever we are, together or not, we’re each an individual representing the team.

Do you have something like this for your family that brings you together and keeps your family motivated?

Things have changed quite a bit since the picture above, but the sentiment remains - and maybe it’s even more important now since we’re working on a farm together. When our kids were younger, we taught them that they were each an important contributor to our family. That we NEEDED their help to make our home and our family thrive. We spent time teaching them how to help, oftentimes reteaching a million times until they did it right; because of this, they know they’ve always been contributing team members and they’ve become more independent team members as they’ve grown. Some of the jobs they’ve had over the years that’ve worked well in helping the team and helped them prepare for adulthood are:

• Taking out the trash

• Washing dishes

• Doing their own laundry and sometimes family laundry

• Helping prepare meals

• Working in the yard

• Taking care of the dogs

• Cleaning the house and their own spaces

Families don’t work well if one person does it all. This is where teamwork comes in!

Now that we’re living in a much more rural area and have a working farm, it sure feels like teamwork’s more important than ever. A huge bonus is that our kids are all now old enough to really contribute and be a big help to us and this new adventure. We couldn’t have gotten this farm off the ground without their help and hard work.

But this all starts when they’re little; teamwork isn’t something that just happens overnight.

You have to start small - with matching socks, washing dishes, and cleaning walls. Then, before you know it, they’re building fence, mucking stalls, and making entire meals for your family. This allows them to feel needed, wanted; it also develops grit, and other skills to last a lifetime!