In this Q&A mini-episode, we tackle one of the most common friction points in households everywhere: how to effectively ask family members to do things. We explore the foundations of clear communication around home tasks without creating tension or resentment.

We dive into:

• Why being specific about tasks is crucial for successful follow-through
• How to shift language from "I need you to" to "This needs to be done" to reduce personal friction
• The importance of establishing a common household goal before assigning tasks
• Why communication style (including tone and body language) matters as much as the words used
• Practical strategies for teaching children home management skills for their future

Tools mentioned that could help your household:

• Skylight Calendar - A family calendar that helps coordinate tasks and schedules for everyone in the household
• Dry Erase Board - For those who like to communicate more analog.

We believe these communication foundations can transform how your household functions, reducing tension while getting more done. Remember, these skills take practice - be gentle with yourself as you implement them.

Have a question for a future Q&A episode? Submit it at noshameinthehomegame.com

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Welcome to no Shame in the Home Game, the podcast that cares how your home feels, not looks.

I'm Lacy here, joined in sound by my 5 month old daughter at an activity center.

So if you hear stuff, that's her and we're all rolling with it here with my official co host, Sarah.

Hi, Lacey.

I do love to think of Violet as our honoree co host.

That's so great because I heard her and it made me happy.

So she's contributing to the vibe, which I enjoy.

She's also in this phase of she gets really excited and makes noises like.

Yeah, the heavy breathing.

That was her getting excited.

I'm excited to hear what she'll get excited about.

Yeah, I see you.

I know.

And I'm really excited about what we're talking about today because it's actually something that's been on my mind a lot and it's how to ask family, and I'm going to say friends, people in your world to help you with things.

We're talking specifically when it comes to home management stuff, but this could be a lot larger.

Violet is also really excited about this.

I don't think I came up with this episode.

I think you did, Sarah, quite possibly because this has been a journey for me.

Anyone out there listening who is the primary home manager knows a lot of resentment can form when the chaos level is very high.

And so I've worked through this myself on how do I phrase this, how do I say this, how do I communicate without anger?

Because I've noticed this with myself and with other clients is sometimes forward progress doesn't happen because the emotion levels are very high.

Emotions are natural and are going to happen.

And if things don't feel good, I always say that's the red flag indicating something needs to change or needs attention.

And then I really thought about is how do we get past the emotions of it doesn't feel good to how do we communicate what we need to happen?

And so when I heard you introducing the podcast, I, I put things into two buckets immediately.

Is the people.

How do you communicate to the people you live with, whether or not those are people you're blood related to or married to, legally contractual, bounded to, or if you have roommates of some kind, so the people sharing your living space and then also possibly another bucket of people who you don't share living space with, but maybe you need a helping hand from.

So really two different ways to communicate depending on which bucket we're talking about.

I'm thinking we should go with the first one.

Which is people you live with.

I think that's great.

I also to make sure we address because this is something that's been on my mind a bit.

People who come into your home who maybe aren't related to you.

I'm very specifically thinking about my son's friends because they come into my home and then they do things and like that's not cool.

So like how do I.

That's another whole thing too.

Right now I'm already subheading all of this.

We're going to have to have another episode.

So this first episode I say let's talk about how do you communicate to the people you live with about things that need to get done for home management?

So because your son's friends are guests in your home, so how do you communicate in that domain?

And then I think the third one that we're going to do is how do you communicate in times of need when you can't do the day to day management and it's beyond what your family can do, how do you communicate to that next rung?

So let's focus on how do you communicate with your people you're living with?

Lacy, tell me, how does that go down for you when things need to happen in the house?

It's interesting, I would say that this has been something that we've been working really hard on recently with my kids because after doing home management for kids, been very mindful in my house about what it looks like and what it means to do chores or that kind of stuff.

But I want to go back before I even think about that.

I know it took a while for Joe, my husband and I to figure out ways to ask each other to do things that did not just immediately start fights.

Oh, I love this.

And anyone listening, please submit this.

How do you communicate to not start fight?

A lot of it's trying to understand each other.

Joe has talked before about how he has adhd.

And part of ADHD is something called rejection, sensitive, sensitivity, dysphoria.

Essentially it's when someone gives you feedback, it causes you such emotional pain that it is very challenging.

So that means anytime I would ask him to do something or that something was not happening, anytime I would ask, it would seem like an attack to him.

And so then all bets are off and things got real rough.

I think that probably was one of the hardest things Joe and I had to figure out together.

We've improved, but it's also given us the tools to approach our kids in a different way.

And we're not perfect.

I wanted to be very clear that we still really struggle.

There are about three things that we constantly are going over in our house.

One is we are talking about two foundational things.

We are all on the same team.

It's not just one person's responsibility.

We all enjoy our home more when it is not a hot mess.

This is something else we talk about.

And then the other thing is expectations of timeliness.

Something that we're getting a lot better about in general right now.

We've got a really good system.

I got one of those skylight calendars.

I'm working on trying to be an affiliate for them because I'm a big fan.

But on there there are chore charts.

And it is perfect for my children because they get a little star.

There's an emoji.

They come home from school, look to see what their chore is, in the afternoon, do it, and then they get to press the button and things happen.

We're about two weeks into that and it's pretty cool.

I hope it stays that way.

Is our like more routine type things.

The one offs are still a struggle because every once in a while I hit a stress hole, a threshold.

And then everybody needs to get with me right now because I'm tired of stepping on Legos, tired of not being able to walk through this room and then I become a problem for everyone.

So I'm not saying that's the right way to.

But yeah, that was a little bit of a monologue to how things are here.

You highlighted a lot of great points.

One, when you started communicating with Jo.

Cause you were living together and I think that's such a great point and I think it's not to be overlooked.

We don't realize that we have these expectations about how things should look and feel.

We don't realize we have built in patterns of how we communicate.

So yes.

Learning how you want to communicate, how your partner needs to best receive it, that's an ongoing journey.

Just pause there.

It will always be an ongoing journey.

Yes.

That's another thing that we're never gonna have it nailed down.

Yes.

Is it best to do on a daily basis to communicate what needs to be done or on a weekly basis, is it best to do it with a visual?

Like you were saying the skylight calendar.

Or in our house we use a dry erase board on the fridge, or is it best to do it verbally so there's even just the not what you're saying, but how are you getting it there?

My background is in communication and so I just want to remind everyone of the basics of a communication model.

Because I think it can be very helpful when we're talking about these types of things.

I think we are prone to think of communication as it's called the hypodermic needle.

So, like, I have an idea in my head, I shoot you with it.

It goes right in your head.

You know exactly what's going on and we can all move on.

But that's not really what happens.

The communication model is much more complex and there are communicating with another person.

So person A and person B.

Person A has to take what they want and encode it.

It gets trans transmitted via channels context to person B, who then decodes it to then understand what's going on.

So even just in that very quick explanation, there are so many places where communication can break down, right?

So just in the encoding, I.

You heard me say I get frustrated and become everybody's problem.

I walk around the house and I'm like, things need to go.

Is that really the message that I want to be sending?

Probably not.

The Joe I already mentioned that had a hard time with that decoding because he was decoding it into a much more aggressive place or how it's being sent.

So there are just so many different factors in how we communicate.

One simple thing that I really want everyone to give themselves a little bit more grace when it comes to communication.

Because not that needle.

You're not just injecting it into someone.

There's so many different factors happening.

And this all goes back to why I love the work we're doing.

It's so easy to overlook and be like, this doesn't matter.

But it does because that influences how you're feeling when you're in your home and you're carrying those feelings.

Goes back to the classic example with home management for kids.

When I say the word clean, your like, clean, clean your room.

When you were saying the encoding and decoding, I'm like, yeah, clean means something different to everybody.

Is that picking up?

Is that organizing?

Is that vacuum?

Is that dusting?

So yes, it's so important to really think about how you're communicating it and how the person is receiving it.

I've definitely learned to be way more specific with instructions.

And we talk about that in home management for everyone about breaking it down.

If you tell somebody to do the dishes, what are you really telling them?

Are you saying, put the dishes in the sink into the dishwasher?

Are you telling somebody to hand wash a pan that's sitting on the stove?

On one level, we're talking about just, are you being clear about what needs to be done?

But on another level, why are we doing this for the home?

I like to be really thoughtful about what words I'm using when tasks need to be done.

If I have to use my voice instead of writing it down, it's not, I need you to do the dishes.

I really work on removing the I from it.

The dishes need to be done.

Or sometimes I even say the house needs, because I think it can create a lot of tension and resentment.

If I keep saying I need and then it doesn't get done, it feels like an attack against me.

Yeah, absolutely.

You mentioned in the beginning, when you are the primary person doing things in your household, it can be very frustrating to feel like you're constantly communicating things.

So I think be gentle with yourself is a good first place to start.

Even though where we're asking people to start to think about things is starting from a place of bare.

Like, bare bones, you know what I mean?

That kind of stuff, really breaking it down.

Doing that foundational work now creates the scaffolding for it to be easier later.

Should we have to be putting this much effort in?

Maybe not.

But doing some of these things now can really help down the road and make life easier and easier.

Yes.

I liked what you just said there a lot.

Because by default, I think one person does end up doing the majority unless it's intentionally scoped out a different way.

And you're absolutely right.

I think stopping and giving yourself some grace, that it is overwhelming.

It can be overwhelming.

And there's a decision to make.

Like I always ask clients which is more painful when there's a decision, which is more painful just doing it all yourself and continuing to do it all yourself and not asking, or is it more painful to learn how to communicate with those that you live with to get things done?

And like you said, the whole point is that as you integrate some of these tools, it does get easier and easier.

It takes work in the beginning, and it's easy to overlook and not give any attention or energy to.

But which is more painful?

Just continue doing it all yourself and walking around secretly pissed off that you're doing it all or developing the language and tools to communicate first is being just being thoughtful about everything that needs to be done and then being thoughtful about, do I want to take time and energy to learn how to communicate this, or do I want to just do it all myself?

Which is more painful?

And that's.

There's no right or wrong answer.

Yeah.

And then having the common goal with those that you're living with.

I'm even thinking about people sharing an apartment during college.

It's, hey, talk with your roommates.

Is your shared vision that you can go into the kitchen and it's not going to smell disgusting because you want to be able to make your food, or is it that you want to have it nice enough that your parents can come and not freak out that you're living in a landfill?

So even just having that vis that common goal, I think is really important before you even get down to the nuts and bolts.

And then, like I said, I really enjoy using the words, this needs to be done, not, I need you to do this.

And I really like, Lacy, that you brought up the hypodermic needle example.

And it's so true about how much can get lost in translation.

And like you said with Joe in the rsd, which I'm very familiar with from my work with Corey and work with clients of even.

How are you saying it?

Not just the words, but the tone in your face and your body language.

If it's coming across with a lot of resentment and anger, then perhaps that person isn't even absorbing the tasks that needs to be done, because all they're absorbing is this person is really pissed off at me.

I feel like we've gone to a lot of places, but they're all so essential and fundamental to communicating within a household about home management.

I want to hear from people like, how did you learn how to talk with your partner about how things need to get done?

There's just so much I want to know.

Yeah, this is the foundations.

We'll call this the foundations of how to ask people to do things.

And we'll layer on that more and more.

Just side note, again, this is so easy to overlook.

I think it is important because for so long, it was the mom or the wife or a hired staff that was doing all of this work.

So this really is very new on that collaborative effort of communicating what needs to be done.

So it isn't all on one person's shoulder.

And I do want to hear from people.

How have you learned how to communicate with the people you live with, with a partner that you moved in with?

How have you learned how to communicate if you had a successful roommate experience about communicating chores?

I lived a house.

There were seven girls.

Let me tell you, communication was so important with a house of seven.

Yeah, I want to hear from you.

I want to hear from the audience about communicating with those that you live with and what's Worked what were some real catastrophes.

And I love that you have your success story with Skylight and, oh, my gosh, if they could be one of our sponsors.

Amazing, because, yeah, we're teaching our kids how to do this for when they're managing their own spaces and they have roommates and partners.

So it is so important for that good foundation for our kids.

Yeah.

Right, Violet?

Yeah.

These conversations are how we make change.

So if you are seeing things that you don't like, this is how we make change.

So I think a lot of times it's very easy to feel powerless and in a lot of stuff, but change starts in our homes and these conversations and how we set this stuff up.

And so it may seem daunting, it may seem overwhelming, may seem insignificant, but not.

There's the three steps.

So your story, your joy and your step.

And yeah, this is a step you can take.

If your story is filled with frustration around your home, this is the step you can take.

All right, Sarah, what are you grateful for?

Today?

I'm going to bring it right back to caterpillars and monarchs.

This has been an amazing year for monarch caterpillars in our yard, and I am so thankful for all the ones out munching on my milkweed right now.

And I saw a monarch hatch yesterday, and yeah, that's just bringing me a lot of joy because it's really cool, Lacy.

Well, and I'm also very happy because I just got a very zoomed in face Violet, which made me smile.

She's a.

She's a gal who loves a change in scenery.

She's my child, so that's why she's like, I'm done in here, woman.

We need to go to a different room.

I am thankful for being able to go for walks.

I know not everybody knows my story, but with my me, cfs, exercise actually is not recommended because of a lot of different factors.

And I've been in such a good place lately that I've been going on 20 minute walks with Violet in the mornings, and it has been flight.

So I'm very grateful for that.

Right, Buffett?

Like, I'm grateful, too.

That makes me happy.

Yep.

This episode has been brought to you by Flying Violet.

Fly in the skies like Violet with a smile on your face.

All right, thank you, Lacey.

Thank you, Sarah.