How to Motivate your Kids to Help you with Housekeeping

In the eyes of the law you have every right to require your children to help you with housekeeping. After close revision of your job characteristics as a mother, your lawyer would certainly come to the conclusion that there’s no clause stipulating you should be a vassal to your own children! Your work relationship should be based on mutual respect, love and support! Go share the good news with your children and in case they want to appeal the sentence, below are some practical and motivational tips to get them on your side!

Let’s face it, cleaning can be extremely boring even for adults! So how can you possibly sell it to kids?! Sometimes you have to spend hours listening to the droning of the vaccum cleaning or the squeaky sound produced by a sponge against a surface and it can be maddening. One way to solve this problem is to turn up the music. You can always give your kid a set of ear plugs but the even better idea is to make a decades’ themed dance cleaning party! One week you can bust a move under the beat of the golden twenties and another under the sounds of the looney sixties! You could even consider dressing the part and putting on costume before the dance clean-up begins. Dressing for the occasion will make your kids take the work seriously… And have fun while doing it! Organize groups of dance partners and teach your children how to work in a team! Grab the poodle skirt, the vacuum, and get ready to boogie!

As a parent you want to give your children a variety of wholesome choices for every meal you prepare and at some point it’s inevitable to run out of ideas! Why not ask your kids for help? They are at this golden age when creativity is bursting at the seams and since they are bound to have opinions any way, why not give them the freedom to weigh in? Let them make their own meal plan and come up with a recipe using their imagination. This would a good chance for them to put their creativity to use and stir up a concoction of unlikely ingredients. Make it a contest and pretend you’re shooting our own version of a cooking show! It’s a great way to nurture a better understanding of foods and it will kickstart a good habit of helping in the kitchen. It will also give them a sense of independence and make them feel useful. And no matter how their cooking goes, this is a great time to show them all the work YOU do for THEM. They may not come up with the best recipe, but they will gain an appreciation of all that you do in the kitchen for your family.

You can work on the attention and precision of your kids with an investigation game. Again, it’s a good idea to get in character by dressing as a police office, for instance. Turn your bathroom into an investigation ground and make them do inch by inch inspection of every stain, mineral deposit and dirt debris. Make them write a report and then follow a check-list of cleaning duties! You can participate and inform them of the safety measures when using chemicals to sanitize and disinfect different areas. It would be good for them to know how to protect themselves and how to do an appropriate detailed cleaning. Play scientists and combine products at hand and make your own natural detergents. Show them how to use everyday products like vinegar and soda for cleaning purposes. After all, what kid doesn’t like mixing and shaking?

Use these tips and you just might find a way to love cleaning yourself. Get ready for smiling kids and a clean house!