Comedian Phyllis Diller said “Cleaning the house while your kids are still growing is like shovelling the walk before it stops snowing.”
It’s challenging to keep things shipshape with kids at home, so here are some handy tips for getting the kids on board with housework, from busy parents within the ecostore whanau.
Make them part of the solution - It’s good to talk to the youngest members of the household about why it’s important to do their bit, then lead into the different things you can each do as part of the family.
Keep it age appropriate - It’s all about finding chores they can do. For preschool kids, that’s probably putting toys back in the toybox or pulling the duvet back up in the morning, while bigger kids can help with the dishes.
Let them help (even if it takes longer) - Spending time now can pay off in the future. Getting the kids to pair up their socks, or put their folded clothes away in their drawers, starts with hanging out and showing them how it’s done.
Gamify clean up time -
• Reverse scavenger hunt: For example ‘put away everything that’s blue’.
• Beat the timer: Tell the kids what you want them to do, then put on a favourite song, and they have to finish the job before the song ends.
• Slam dunk: Using the toybox as a goal, get the kids to toss (unbreakable) toys in, while you shout ‘she shoots, she scores’ etc.
• Break it into bite-sized chunks – ‘Clean up your room’ feels overwhelming when you’re a kid. Try breaking bigger tasks into small, specific ones. For example, ‘let’s put the toy cars in the blue bin’, or ‘now we put the animals on the shelf by the window’.
Avoid the blame game - While it’s tempting, telling kids ‘you got it out so you have to put it away’ generally leads to protests of ‘he/she did it’. Encouraging your kids to clean up relies on everyone working together, regardless of who made the mess.
Picture what you want - Chore charts are great visual prompts for pre-reading age children, and a good way to track their achievements. Likewise, sticking a picture of the object to the box, shelf or drawer it goes in, makes it easier for little ones to put things away independently.
ECOSTORE, 1 Scotland Street, Freemans Bay, T: 09 360 8477, www.ecostore.co.NZ
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