Getting through their chores—"Basic things that any child should know how to do," she says of laundry, dishes and keeping the pantry organized, isn't always a Mary Poppins-style scene. "Some days they

Getting through their chores—"Basic things that any child should know how to do," she says of laundry, dishes and keeping the pantry organized, isn't always a Mary Poppins-style scene. "Some days they go through it singing and dancing and having fun and they create games with it, like who can dry the dishes faster," she says. "And some days it's like, do we really have to do this? So it goes through waves but we try to keep it fun for them."

Basic incentives work, she says, like, "Hey, if you want to watch something together tonight we have to finish everything by a certain time." A little ingenuity goes far, too. "We created a cleaning company and everybody's in charge of one thing."

That sense of structure now extends to schoolwork with she and the actor, plus her mother-in-law, Kay McConaughey, taking on the roles of teacher. Chore lists are printed and attached to the fridge; the school work is in the calendar on the wall. "As much as you can visually print out their schedules so the child then has a point of reference," she says, gets them in the habit of doing it on their own.