How to Get Your Children to Help with Housework

If you have kids it may seem like your home is always a mess. Are shoes, backpacks, coats, and other items constantly strewn throughout your home? When it comes to getting your children to clean up after themselves and help out with housework, it can be a very difficult getting them to pitch in. Making a chore schedule and being consistent will definitely help get your children to give you a hand when it comes to housework. Here are some tips that will help you come up with a creative plan to teach your children how to clean, and help out around the house.

Are you still picking up after your 3 or 4 year old? Stop it right now! Even if you have small children they can still be great helpers, and pick up their toys and clothing after themselves. If you are cleaning up after any child older than 3 you will play maid until they move out, and they will never learn how to clean. Starting your children young with housework will help you avoid lots of stress later on when your children get older. If you have several children you can split the tasks accordingly.

Before you even make a cleaning schedule or assign duties to any of your children you need to set some rules.

• The house must stay clean.
• Keep your bedroom and bathroom clean.
• Everyone does their chores.

You must be consistent, do not bend any of the rules. Your children will cry and plead with you not to do their chores but you must not let them get out of it. If it helps offer them a small allowance for keeping things clean during the week. Just don't make empty promises because children are smart, and they will stop cleaning if they don't get what you promised. You don't have to be a drill sergeant, but you must stick to the rules.

A common rule in most households, "if you make a mess, you clean it up" should be followed in your home as well. When your children come home from sports or school in the afternoon they should hang up their jacket and take their backpack to their room, or another place where they do homework. Shoes that are taken off should be put away, as well as other clothing like sweatshirts, hats, scarves, and gloves.

Keeping Bedrooms Clean

Beds should be made in the morning, before your children go to school and wet towels should be hung in the bathroom. Wet towels hanging over doors and on chairs can leave damp white colored spots on wood finishes that usually only fades, but never goes away. Stress the importance of hanging wet towels where they belong, in the bathroom. Our rule was always "put it back where you got it from".

If you have teenagers don't stress too much over a messy room. Many families come to a major division when it comes to keeping their teenagers room clean. Any person can at least make their bed and pick up the laundry, but you would be surprised when dealing with a 15 year old. If you can't get them to clean it up don't fuss too much, just close the door and keep it shut. Don't let guests go to their room and don't bother wasting the breath or time on an argument. Teenagers in general, especially those nearing graduation of high school, are super busy these days and often don't have a lot of free time. They will eventually grow out of it, and when you stop focusing on it they will in the end get around to cleaning it up.

Set an Example

The next thing you should do before assigning duties to your children is clean out the clutter. A clean home will give your children a great example of what it should look like on a daily basis. If you have a lot of shoes by your front door try placing a bench that has a shelf or cabinet underneath it, by your front door. The seat will help when putting on and taking off shoes, and is also a great place to store them when not in use. Instead of clunky winter boots all around your entry they can be put away, out of the way.

If you also find that you have a lot of jackets just hanging out all over your home, you may want to get a coat rack, or some hooks. Hooks can be installed right next to the door or along a wall in the entry way. Over the door hooks are also great. Coat racks are do-able for most people, but if you have 6 kids (or more) you may want to opt for the hooks. When a coat rack gets too heavy it can be knocked over very easily.

Installing laundry chutes will also help clean up the clothes lying all around your house quickly, with little effort. If you can afford it, have laundry chutes installed that go to the laundry room or basement from several locations throughout your house. Of course the bedroom and bathroom are great places to install the chutes, as well as near the kitchen for dirty hand towels and rags. Installing and using the laundry chute will make laundry a breeze. No more going from room to room picking up dirty clothes and towels.

Store and sort school papers and mail, throw out old newspapers and magazines, and pick up any other clutter that is lying around and put it away. Now that your house is clean your children should clearly understand how you want it to be kept, with their help. Now you are ready to make a cleaning schedule to keep your house the way it is.

Making a Schedule and Sticking to it

In my house we have a cleaning day as well as daily chores. I come from a family of 8 so we all had a job. On Saturdays, usually around 6 pm we would have cleaning hour. One person does vacuuming, one person collects the laundry, and one person takes out the recyclables and garbage, and so on. Assign jobs that are age appropriate, after all you don't want your three year old spraying glass cleaner on everything.

Choose a day that you and your children are not busy. You don't want after school activities and sports interrupting your cleaning routine. Sundays are good and Saturdays as well, usually between 4 pm and dinner time. We used to have to clean Saturday after dinner before we could go out for the night, and it gave us motivation to get it done right the first time. If we did a horrible job we wouldn't be allowed out until it was right.

A good way for us to clean, and get it over with quickly was to pair up. If you have several children you can try this and give them multiple tasks. Children under five seem to be domestically impaired, but they can still be great helpers. Pair your younger children up with an older one and let them work together on basic house cleaning tasks; one can spray, the other can wipe, etc., and everyone will benefit from the feelings of bonding that will occur during this "family time".

If you have more than 2 children living in your home you will probably need to assign daily chores as well. Since we had eight kids in our family we rotated jobs throughout the week as well. Basic cleaning like doing the dishes, taking out the trash, and vacuuming are all things that need to be done on a daily basis. Rotate the chores between your children so they don't always feel like they have the crappy job. I used to hate taking out the cat litter, but it wasn't so bad when I only had to do it once a week.

Sticking to your daily cleaning routine is a must! The moment you allow your children to get out of doing their chores they think they can get out of doing them forever. Children are prone to testing their parents especially when it comes to doing things they don't really want to do. But nobody wants to spend time cleaning, sympathize with your children but make sure they understand that no one wants to live in a pig sty either.

If your plan isn't working take a few days off to think about what's really important. What must be done? What can slide every now and then? If you are putting too much housework on your kids, it is almost guaranteed that your home is not going to look the way you want it to. It is important for the parents to help out too; you can't just turn your children into mini-maids while you watch TV. If they see that you are not helping they will resent you and be less cooperative when it comes to completing chores.

After you have taken some time to focus on what's important try a new plan. Try another after that if it still isn't working. Your "plan" has to be able to grow with your children and should have a modest amount of flexibility when it comes to getting it done. Sometimes it is understandable to have a slightly messy home when everyone is busy with sports, work, volunteering, dance, and swimming lessons, etc. As adults, sometimes we don't have time to clean either, but we will get around to it sooner or later.