Teaching your children to participate in your home’s daily chores is not an easy task, however it is important for them and for you. If it’s either picking up the toys or cleaning their own rooms, kids need to understand what it takes to have their home clean and organised just as they like.
However, children don’t tend to be bothered about helping doing chores. You are not alone in this dilemma. So, we’ll get you through 6 useful tips to get them involved in both funny and pedagogic ways.
1. Turn it into a game
Who doesn’t enjoy a game? Turn organisation time into a game and watch them getting involved and happy in that task. Organise the items by colours, shapes or sizes. If you are looking to get your kids excited, get a stopwatch and set a limit time to do a chore.
Do a friendly competition in your home. With this, your kids will probably consider chore time as “fun time” within seconds.
2. Captivate your kids
You better than anyone know your kids. You know what they like, don’t like and what are their interests. For example, your children may like solving mysteries, watch detective series and Sherlock Holmes. Instead of just telling them which are their chores, turn it into a kind of “homemade case to solve” by giving them riddles to solve and tips to follow. While they’re doing the chores, at the same time, they are focused on solving the mystery and, there you have it – your children invested in doing chores for fun.
3. Create a friendly competition
Kids love to compete among themselves, especially if there’s a tangible goal to look forward to. A friendly competition may be what you need in order to get everyone in the house – yes even the parents – anticipating chore time and trying to beat everyone else.
But, of course, there’s no competition without a prize, so choose a reward for the winner or winners.
We think that’s a great way to get kids involved and even eager to help you at home. Make your children aware of the importance of keeping the house and their rooms clean and organised, while explaining the benefits. They will have a positive reaction to all of this, probably wanting to help even when there isn’t any Cleaning Olympics going on around at the house.
4. Pump up with music
Music is part of our lives, right? Whether we are stuck in traffic, training or even working with our EarPods, for many of us music is always our companion. Why don’t you liven up the mood while doing chores, with everyone’s favourite tracks playing?
5. Show them how you do it
Children, naturally, look up to their parents and see them as role models. Depending on their age, they even tend to copy and mimic everything they see you doing. Take advantage of this and give them tricks and tips on how you do your house chores in order to do it in a quicker and efficient manner. Starting to teach them the main advantages of periodic room organisation and decluttering at a young age will be useful to them in adulthood and set them up for success when in their college room or their own household.
6. Snack time after chore time
If you looked until this 6th tip you either liked this article or you have tried everything above and nothing worked. Well, we are here to get your back, so another possibility is after all the chores in your household are finished, you go for a snack wherever you or your kids want to. Your kids will surely look forward to organising their rooms, if there’s an ice cream after. After all, make sure you reward them for their help and show that their good actions aren’t unnoticed.
Conclusion
Cleaning time can be a great time to bond and share some family time together, and unlike what almost everyone thinks, it doesn’t have to be boring. Our 6 tips will make this as something that they look forward to weekly. You can choose one or even try them all as that’s a great way to make sure there’s something new every week. Kids love to mirror their parents and love to feel integrated in everything that happens inside their home.